| 1776 | The American Revolution begins. |
| 1789 | The U.S. Constitution is ratified. |
| 1789 | George Washington becomes the first president of the U.S. |
| 1791 | The Bill of Rights is ratified. |
| 1803 | U.S. acquires the Louisiana Territory from France. |
| 1812 | U.S. fights Great Britain in War of 1812. |
| 1820 | Missouri Compromise is created to maintain balance between free and slave states in U.S. |
| 1837 | A financial panic occurs in the U.S. (Panic of 1837). |
| 1838 | Native Americans are forced to move west — Trail of Tears. |
| 1846 | U.S. wars with Mexico. |
| 1848 | The first Woman’s Rights Convention is held in Seneca Falls & Rochester, New York. The Declaration of Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence is adopted. |
| 1849 | The California Gold Rush begins. |
| 1850 | The Fugitive Slave Law is passed providing for the return of escaped slaves between states. |
| 1853 | Florence Nightingale organizes wartime nursing during the Crimean War in Europe. |
| 1859 | Abolitionist, John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, his subsequent trial and hanging occurs. |
| 1861 | The Civil War begins. |
| 1861 | Abraham Lincoln is president. |
| 1865 | President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. by John Wilkes Booth. |
| 1865 | The Civil War ends. |
| 1865 | The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery. |
| 1868 | The Fourteenth Amendment gives citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., including former slaves. |
| 1869 | The Transcontinental Railroad crossing the U.S. is completed. |
| 1870 | The Fifteenth Amendment gives former male slaves the right to vote. |
| 1873 | U.S. economy has a serious business depression. |
| 1876 | Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. |
| 1877 | Thomas Edison invents the phonograph. |
| 1883 | Thomas Edison invents the light bulb. |
| 1898 | The Spanish-American War begins. |
| 1903 | The airplane of the Wright Brothers, The Wright Flyer, is the first ever power-driven, heavier-than-air machine that has a controlled and sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. |
| 1904 | One million immigrants per year arrive in the U.S. |
| 1906 | The San Francisco Earthquake occurs. |
| 1908 | Henry Ford produces the first Model-T car. |
| 1910 | The first wireless telegraph message is transmitted between land and air. |
| 1914 | World War I begins. |
| 1914 | The Panama Canal opens. |
| 1915 | Coast-to-coast telephone service is introduced in the U.S. |
| 1915 | The ship, Lusitania, is sunk by a German U-Boat. |
| 1917 | Bolshevik Revolution begins in Russia. |
| 1917 | U.S. enters World War I. |
| 1918 | World War I ends. |
| 1919 | The Eighteenth Amendment – Prohibition — is passed. |
| 1920 | The League of Nations is formed. |
| 1920 | The Nineteenth Amendment — The Susan B. Anthony Amendment — giving women the right to vote is passed. |