| A | B |
|---|
| 1558 | Protestant Elizabeth ascended to the English throne; Protestantism became dominant in England and rivalry with Catholic Spain intensified. |
| 1588 | "Invincible" Armada of Philip II of Spain attempt invasion of England. |
| May 24, 1607 | English create outpost in Jamestown, Virginia; about 100 English settlers land by the James River. |
| 1608 | French create oupost in Quebec. |
| 1609 | Henry Hudson, disregarding orders to sail northeast, ventured into Deleware Bay and New York Bay and then ascended the Hudson River. |
| 1610 | Spanish create outpost in Santa Fe. |
| spring 1610 | Diseased colonists dragged themselves aboard homeward-bound ships, only to be met at the mouth of James River by a relief party headed by Lord De La Warr who ordered them back to Jamestown and iposed a harsh military regime on the colony. |
| 1614 | First Anglo-Powhatan War ended by peace settlement and by marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. |
| 1619 | Dutch warship appeared off Jamestown and sold twenty Africans. |
| 1620 | Mayflower arrived off the rocky coast of New England; Mayflower Compact signed |
| 1621 | Massasoit of the Wampanog Indians signed a treaty with the Plymouth Pilgrims and helped them celebrate the first Thanksgiving. |
| 1623 | Sir Ferdinando Gorges attempted to colonize the coast of Maine. |
| 1629 | Charles I dismissed Parliament and sanctioned the anti-Puritan persecutions of the reactionary Archbishop William Laud |
| 1629 | non-Separatist Puritans secure a royal charter to form the Massachusetts Bay Company |
| 1630s | The "Great Migration"; about seventy thousand refugees left England. |
| 1634 | Maryland founded by Lord Baltimore |
| 1635 | The Bay Colony found Roger Williams guilty of disseminating "newe and dangerous opionions" and ordered him banished. |
| 1636 | Harvard College established. |
| 1638 | Anne Huchinson brought to trial; boasted that she had come by her beliefs through a direct revelation from God; banished her |
| 1639 | Fundamental Orders written |
| 1644 | Second Anglo-Powhatan War begins; peace treaty in 1646 |
| 1644 | Rhode Island established; secured a charter from Parliament. |
| 1649 | Act of Toleration was passed by the local representative assembly. |
| 1651 | Massachuestts prohibited poorer folk from "wearing gold or silver lace." |
| 1655 | Dutch dispatched a small military expedition, led by Peter Stuyvesant. |
| 1660 | Charles II restored to throne; restoration period begins. |
| 1661 | Barbados slave code |
| 1662 | Connecticut given a sea-to-sea charter grant, which legalized squatter settlements, by Charles II, as a slap at Massachusetts. |
| 1664 | New Jersey started; land given to two noble proprietors by the Duke of York. |
| 1670 | Virginia assembly disfranchised most of the freemen |
| 1676 | King Philip's War ends; Metacom's wife and son sold into slavery, Metacom drawn and quartered. |
| 1676 | Bacon's Rebellion |
| 1689-1691 | Leisler's Rebellion, between lordly landholders and aspiring merchants |
| 1691 | Massachusetts made a royal colony |
| 1692 | Twenty individuals lynched in Massachusetts as a result of the "witch hunt." |
| 1693 | The governor of Massachusetts prohibited any further trials and pardoned those already convicted. (Salem witch hunt ends) |
| 1693 | College of William and Mary established in Virginia. |
| 1698 | The Royal African Company lost its crown-granted monopoly on carrying slaves to the colonies. |
| end of 1600s | Uprising of Maryland's Protestants |
| 1702 | Lord Cornbury, first cousin of Queen Anne, was made governor of New York and New Jersey. |
| 1707 | Savannah Indians decide to end their alliance with the Carolinians and to migrate to the backcountry of Maryland and Pennsylvania to new colony of Quakers; "thinned" out by 1710. |
| 1712 | Slave revolt erupted in New York City; cost the lives of a dozen whites and caused the execution of twenty-one blacks. |
| 1712 | North Carolina officially separated from South Carolina |
| 1721 | Crude form of smallpox inoculation introduced |
| 1730s and 1740s | Great Awakening, starting in Northampton, Massachusetts, spread through the colonies. |
| 1733 | Georgia formally founded |
| 1733 | Molasses Act passed by Parliament, aimed at squelching North American trade with the French West Indies. |
| 1739 | South Carolina blacks along the Stono River exploded in revolt and tried to march to Spanish Florida; stopped by local militia. |
| 1732 to 1758 | Benjamin Franklin edited the Poor Richard's Almanack |
| about 1750 | Trained attorneys were generally recognized as useful. |
| 1764 | Paxton Boys of Philadelphia led an armed march protesting the Quaker oligarchy's lenient policy toward the Indians. |
| 1776 | Declaration of Independence signed |
