US History: Key Events and Figures
Key Events and Figures in US History
The Wilmot Proviso
This would prohibit slavery in any lands acquired from Mexico.
Popular Sovereignty
The idea of this would allow people in the territories to decide whether or not to permit slavery.
Free-Soil Party
This party’s stance on slavery infuriated John C. Calhoun.
Gold
The discovery of this in California did not create a population with an equal balance of men and women.
Zachary Taylor
His death strengthened the chance for compromise over slavery in 1850.
Compromise
Read MoreAmerican History: Colonial Era to Civil War
The Colonial Era
- The first successful English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.
- English Puritans came to America to escape religious persecution for their opposition to the Church of England.
- In 1620, the Puritans founded Plymouth Colony in what later became Massachusetts. Plymouth was the second permanent British settlement in North America and the first in New England.
- An English clergyman named Roger Williams left Massachusetts and founded the colony of Rhode Island, based on the
US Civil War: Causes, Key Events, and Reconstruction
Lead-up to the Civil War
- 1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the candidate for the Republican Party, advocating for the abolition of slavery, tariffs to protect industry, and free homesteads for settlers in the West.
- Abraham Lincoln is elected president in 1860.
- (December 20): South Carolina Secession – The first state to secede from the federal Union.
- (February 8, 1861): Provisional Constitution of the 6 Confederate States of America – An agreement among the seven original states (South Carolina, Georgia,