American Government History

Timeline
11 Nov 1620: The Mayflower Compact was the first governing
document of Plymouth Colony.
7 Jun 1628: The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional
document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is
prohibited from infringing.
16 Dec 1689: The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16
December 1689.
1 Jan 1754: The Albany Plan of Union was proposed by Benjamin
Franklin at the Albany Congress in 1754 in Albany, New York. It was an
early attempt at forming a union of the colonies "under one
government as far as might be necessary for defense and other
general important purposes" during the French and Indian War.
5 Sep 1774: The First Continental Congress was a convention of
delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met
on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in
response to the passage of the Intolerable Acts by the British
Parliament.
22 Jan 1775: The American Revolution was the political upheaval
during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in
North America joined together to break free from the British Empire,
combining to become the United States of America. They first rejected
the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from
overseas without representation, and then expelled all royal officials.
10 May 1775: The Second Continental Congress was a convention
of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning on May 10,
1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American
Revolutionary War had begun. The second Congress managed the
colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence.
4 Jul 1776: The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas
Jefferson is one of the major books collaborated with Continental
Congress who declared their freedom as a legitimate nation in 1776.

15 Nov 1777: The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of

Confederation and Perpetual Union, was the first constitution of the
United States and specified how the Federal government was to
operate, including adoption of an official name for the new nation,
United States of America.
1 Oct 1783: The end of the Revolutionary War concluded with
effective American victory in October 1781, followed by formal British
abandonment of any claims to the United States with the Treaty of
Paris in 1783.
25 May 1787: The writing of the United States Constitution. The
place: the State House in Philadelphia, the same location where the
Declaration of Independence had been signed 11 years earlier. For four
months, 55 delegates from the several states met to frame a
Constitution for a federal republic that would last into "remote futurity."
29 May 1787: The Connecticut Compromise was an agreement
between large and small states reached during the Constitutional
Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and
representation that each state would have under the United States
Constitution. It proposed a bicameral legislature, resulting in the
current United States Senate and House of Representatives.
17 Sep 1787: Although the Philadelphia Convention was purportedly
intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from
the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison
and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than
fix the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to
preside over the convention.
30 Apr 1803: The Louisiana Purchase Treaty was written and the
Louisiana territory was purchased from France, doubling the size of the
United States.
2 Dec 1823: The Monroe Doctrine written by President James Monroe
warned European nation against further involvement in and
colonization in the Western Hemisphere.
23 Jun 1860: The Government Printing Office was created by
Congress to establish an office to print government publications.
4 Mar 1861: President Abraham Lincoln was elected and
inaugurated, resulting in the secession of many southern states,
eventually leading the beginning of the Civil War.

22 Sep 1862: President Lincoln writes the Emancipation

Proclamation, Lincolns announcement of the freedom of slaves in
areas still in rebellion.
26 Feb 1869: The Fifteenth Amendment was written and gave black
males the right to vote. This was a huge step in the racial
discrimination throughout the country.
25 Sep 1906: Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization
established, Naturalization papers become standardized and contain
more detail about aliens. Any court having common law jurisdiction
could naturalize aliens.
9 Aug 1921: The First consolidation of federal veterans
programs, Congress established the Veterans Bureau by merging all
World War I programs (the Bureau of War Risk Insurance (Treasury
Dept.), the Rehabilitation Division of the Federal Board for Vocational
Education, and all Public Health Service (Treasury Dept.) veterans
hospitals, including those under construction. Veterans Bureau was
renamed as the United States Veterans Bureau by a joint resolution
of Congress On April 24, 1921.
26 May 1924: Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of
immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national
origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of
the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as
of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from
Asia.
26 Jul 1935: The Federal Register Act, passed July 26, it established
the publication of government documents within the National Archives.
4 Mar 1942: Committee on Records of War Administration
established, President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed on March 4 that
a Committee on Records of War Administration be established to
preserve military records for an accurate and objective account of our
present experience.
18 Sep 1947: The National Security Act ordered a major
reorganization of U.S. military establishments and federal offices that
planned and executed foreign policy. In the aftermath of World War II,
the reorganization aimed to improve efficiency and coordination of
those activities in the executive branch. The act created the National
Security Council (NSC). It established the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), an expansion of the earlier Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
The act merged the War Department and Navy Department into a

single Department of Defense, and created a Department of the Air

Force, all under the direction of the Secretary of Defense. Each military
branch retained a service secretary. Amendments in 1949 gave the
Secretary of Defense more power over the individual services.
12 Mar 1947: The Truman Doctrine, President Truman requested
$400 million in aid from Congress on March 12 to combat Communism,
emphasizing Greece and Turkey.
1 Apr 1967: Department of Transportation, President Lyndon
Johnson signed the Department of Transportation Act bringing 31
previously scattered federal elements under one Cabinet Department.
The Federal Aviation Agency became the Federal Aviation
Administration under the new DOT. The new DOT began full operations
on April 1, 1967.
1 Apr 1985: National Archives independence (NARA) became an
independent agency through the National Archives and Records
Administration Act on April 1.
11 Sep 2001: 9/11: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, September 11. A third highjacked plane downed near
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
16 Mar 2012: Executive Order 13526 issued by President Barack
Obama prescribes a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and
declassifying national security information, including information
relating to defense against transnational terrorism.