Revolutions, elections, treaties, crises, protests, and other turning points.
89 entries, in chronological order
c. 21,000 BCE (disputed)·Event
How and when the first people arrived — a question science is still answering
Oct 12, 1492 – 1504·Event
Spanish-sponsored voyages that began sustained contact between Europe and the Americas
Sep 8, 1565·Place
The oldest continuously occupied European-founded city in the United States
1584–1590·Event
England’s “Lost Colony,” 1587
May 13, 1607·Event
The first permanent English settlement in North America, 1607
Aug 1619·Event
1619: Enslaved Angolans arrive at Point Comfort
Dec 1620 – Mar 22, 1621·Event
The Pilgrims’ settlement and the alliance that kept it alive, 1620–1621
Aug 10 – Sep 21, 1680·Event
Pueblo nations unite to drive Spanish colonizers out of New Mexico, 1680
Feb 1692 – 1693·Event
The 1692 witch hunt in Puritan Massachusetts that sent twenty people to their deaths
1754 – Feb 10, 1763·War
The North American front of the Seven Years’ War, 1754–1763
Mar 1765 – Mar 1766·Event
The first great colonial protest against taxation by Parliament
Dec 16, 1773·Event
Colonists destroy East India Company tea in Boston Harbor
Sep 5, 1774 – Mar 1, 1781·Institution
The colonies’ revolutionary assembly, and the first national government
Apr 19, 1775 – Sep 3, 1783·War
The War of Independence, 1775–1783
Jul 4, 1776·Event
The nation’s birthday, celebrated since 1776 and a federal holiday since 1870
Aug 1786 – Feb 1787·Event
An armed uprising of indebted farmers that shook the new nation
May 14 – Sep 17, 1787·Event
Fifty-five delegates meet in secret to redesign the American government
Nov 26, 1789 – Dec 26, 1941·Event
How a day of thanks became a fixed national holiday, from Washington to Roosevelt
Oct 1800 – Feb 17, 1801·Event
The first transfer of power between rival parties
Apr 30, 1803·Event
The United States doubles in size, 1803
May 14, 1804 – Sep 23, 1806·Event
The Corps of Discovery crosses the continent, 1804–1806
Jun 18, 1812 – Feb 18, 1815·War
The United States fights Britain again, 1812–1815
1817–1825·Event
The 363-mile “artificial river” that linked the Great Lakes to New York City in 1825
Feb 1819 – Aug 1821·Event
Congress balances slave and free states, 1820
May 28, 1830 – 1850·Event
The forced expulsion of Native nations from the East, 1830–1850
Feb 23 – Mar 6, 1836·Event
The thirteen-day siege of 1836 and the war that made Texas an independent republic
May 1838 – Mar 1839·Event
The forced removal of the Cherokee Nation, 1838–1839
May 13, 1846 – Feb 2, 1848·War
The United States conquers half of Mexico, 1846–1848
Jan 24, 1848·Event
The 1848 discovery at Sutter’s Mill that sent fortune seekers flooding west
Jul 19–20, 1848·Event
The first women’s rights convention, July 1848
Jan 1850 – Sep 1850·Event
Congress tries to settle the slavery question after the Mexican War
May 30, 1854·Document
The law that repealed the Missouri Compromise and set Kansas bleeding, 1854
Movement
The secret network of freedom seekers and those who helped them escape slavery
Apr 12, 1861 – Apr 9, 1865·War
The war over union and slavery, 1861–1865
Jan 1, 1863·Document
Lincoln declares freedom for enslaved people in the Confederacy, 1863
1863 – May 10, 1869·Event
Rails across the continent, 1863–1869
Jul 1–3, 1863·Event
The bloodiest battle of the Civil War, July 1–3, 1863
1865–1877·Event
The struggle to rebuild the Union and define freedom after the Civil War
Apr 14, 1865·Event
Ford’s Theatre, April 14, 1865
Jun 19, 1865·Event
June 19, 1865: freedom announced in Texas — now a national holiday
Nov 7, 1876 – Mar 4, 1877·Event
The “Compromise of 1877”
Jun 25–26, 1876·Event
Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors destroy Custer’s command, June 1876
May 4, 1886·Event
A bomb at a Chicago labor rally, May 4, 1886
Dec 29, 1890·Event
The U.S. Army kills hundreds of Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek, December 1890
Jan 17, 1893 – Jul 7, 1898·Event
How American sugar planters toppled Queen Liliʻuokalani and the United States took the islands in 1898
May 11, 1894 – Jul 1894·Event
A national railroad boycott crushed by federal troops, 1894
Apr 25 – Dec 10, 1898·War
A short war that made the United States an overseas empire, 1898
1898–1952·Event
From Spanish colony to U.S. territory and commonwealth, 1898–1952
Dec 17, 1903·Event
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, December 17, 1903: the first powered, controlled airplane flights
Mar 25, 1911·Event
A disaster that changed American workplace safety, March 25, 1911
Apr 6, 1917 – Nov 11, 1918·War
The United States enters the Great War, 1917–1918
Jan 17, 1920 – Dec 5, 1933·Event
The national ban on alcohol, 1920–1933
May 31 – Jun 1, 1921·Event
The destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, 1921
Aug 1929 – 1941·Event
The deepest economic collapse in American history, 1929–1941
Oct 24–29, 1929·Event
The collapse that ended the Roaring Twenties boom
c. 1930–1940·Event
Drought, dust storms, and migration on the southern Plains in the 1930s
Feb 1932 – May 23, 1934·Event
Depression-era outlaws whose short, violent crime spree became an American legend
Mar 4, 1933 – 1938·Event
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs of relief, recovery, and reform, 1933–1939
Dec 7, 1941 – Sep 2, 1945·War
The United States in the global war, 1941–1945
Dec 7, 1941·Event
Japan’s surprise attack that brought the United States into World War II
Feb 19, 1942·Event
The forced removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II
Jun 6, 1944·Event
The Allied invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944
Aug 6–9, 1945·Event
The first and only use of nuclear weapons in war, August 1945
Oct 24, 1945·Institution
The international organization founded in 1945 to keep the peace
1947 – Dec 25, 1991·War
The global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, 1947–1991
1948–1952·Event
The European Recovery Program, 1948–1952
Feb 9, 1950 – Dec 2, 1954·Event
Anticommunist investigations and accusations, late 1940s–1954
Jun 25, 1950 – Jul 27, 1953·War
The first major armed conflict of the Cold War, 1950–1953
1954–1968·Movement
The mass struggle against segregation and disfranchisement, 1950s–1960s
Oct 4, 1957 – Jul 20, 1969·Event
From Sputnik to the moon: the Cold War contest for supremacy in space, 1957–1969
Dec 5, 1955 – Dec 20, 1956·Event
The thirteen-month protest that launched the modern civil rights movement
Sep 4–25, 1957·Event
The desegregation of Central High School, 1957
1961–1973·Movement
Native activism for sovereignty and self-determination, 1960s–1970s
Oct 14 – Nov 20, 1962·Event
The October 1962 showdown in which the superpowers came closest to nuclear war
Aug 28, 1963·Event
The 1963 march where King delivered “I Have a Dream”
May 1964 – 1968·Event
Lyndon Johnson’s program to end poverty and racial injustice, 1964–1968
Aug 7, 1964 – Jan 1973·War
America’s longest war of the Cold War era, 1964–1973
Mar 7–25, 1965·Event
“Bloody Sunday” and the march for voting rights, 1965
Jun 28, 1969·Event
The 1969 protests that ignited the gay liberation movement
Jul 16–24, 1969·Event
The first human landing on the Moon, July 1969
Aug 1969·Event
“3 Days of Peace and Music” that came to define a generation
Jun 17, 1972 – Aug 9, 1974·Event
The abuses of power that forced President Nixon to resign, 1972–1974
1989 – Dec 25, 1991·Event
The fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, 1989–1991
Aug 2, 1990 – Feb 28, 1991·War
The U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait, 1990–1991
Sep 11, 2001·Event
The al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of 2001
Oct 7, 2001 – Aug 2021·War
America’s longest war, 2001–2021
Mar 20, 2003 – Dec 18, 2011·War
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, 2003–2011
Dec 2007 – Jun 2009·Event
The financial crisis and deep recession of 2007–2009
Jan 20, 2020·Event
The coronavirus pandemic in the United States, 2020–2023
