1400s

1492-Christopher Columbus lands on one of the Bahamas Islands, discovering the New World for 15th century Europe
1494-Treaty of Tordesillas divides the New World between Spain and Portugal
1497-John Cabot is the first European since the Vikings to reach the North American mainland, which he claims for England

1500s

1513-Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses isthmus of Panama, sees Pacific Ocean
1513-Juan Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain
1519-Hernán Cortés defeats Tlaxcala, a small state neighboring the Aztec empire
1520s-Spanish begin conquest of Maya civilization
1521-Cortes destroys the Aztec empire
1524-Giovanni da Verrazzano, working for France, explores coastline from present-day North Carolina to Maine
1542-Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River, strengthening Spanish claims to the interior of North America
1570s-Iroquois League founded
1587-Sir Walter Raleigh founds Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in the New World, in the Virginia territory
1590-Roanoke found deserted

1600s

Some time between 1600 and 1650 - Mahican Confederacy founded
1607 - Jamestown Settlement is founded by English Gold seekers

1620s

1620 - Mayflower Compact signed

1630s

1630 - Winthrop Fleet travels to Massachusetts Bay Colony
1630 - Rensselaerwyck colony founded
1634 - Province of Maryland founded
1634 - Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony
1635 - Connecticut Colony founded
1636 - Rhode Island Colony founded by Roger Williams
1636 - Harvard College founded
1637 - New Haven Colony founded
1637 - Pequot War in New England
1638 - Delaware Colony founded
1638 - New Sweden established
1639 - Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony signed
1639 - Fundamental Orders of Connecticut adopted

1640s

1640 - French and Iroquois Wars ("Beaver Wars") escalate to full warfare
1643 - New England Confederation created
1643-1645 - Kieft's War in New Netherland
1644-1646 - Second Anglo–Powhatan War
1649 - Maryland Toleration Act

1650s

1655-1660 - Peach Tree War
1659-1663 - Esopus Wars

1660s

1662 - Halfway Covenant adopted
1663 - King Charles II of England grants charter for a new colony, Province of Carolina
1664 - New Amsterdam captured by the English at the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War
1664 - New Netherland ceded to England under Treaty of Breda and Treaty of Westminster (1664)
1669-1670 - John Lederer of Virginia explores the Appalachian Mountains

1670s

1670 - Charles Town (Charleston) founded in present-day South Carolina
1671 - The Batts-Fallam expedition sponsored by Abraham Wood reaches the New River (West Virginia)
1672 - Blue Laws enacted in Connecticut
1672-1673 - Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette explore the Illinois Country
1675 - King Philip's War (1675-76) in New England
1676 - Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia
1677 - Province of Maine absorbed by Massachusetts Bay Colony
1679 - War between the Westo and colonial South Carolina results in the destruction of the Westo.

1680s

1680 - Pueblo Revolt in Spanish New Mexico
1682 - Province of Pennsylvania founded by William Penn
1682 - René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle travels down the Mississippi River to its mouth
King James II reduces colonial autonomy
1686 - Dominion of New England decreed
1687 - Yamasee Indians from Spanish Florida move to South Carolina, becoming an important ally of the English
1688 - Glorious Revolution deposes James II and replaces him with William and Mary; Dominion of New England ceases to exist
1689 - King William's War (1689-1697), part of the wider War of the Grand Alliance, begins

1690s

1690 - Schenectady Massacre
1692 - Salem witchcraft trials in Salem Colony in Salem, Massachusetts
1697 - The War of the Grand Alliance ends with the Treaty of Ryswick
1698 - Pensacola, Florida established by the Spanish
1699 - Biloxi, Mississippi by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville

1700s

1702 - Queen Anne's War (War of the Spanish Succession) begins
1702 - East Jersey and west Jersey become crown colonies

1710s

1711 - Tuscarora War begins
1713 - Queen Anne's War ends with the Treaty of Utrecht
1715 - Yamasee War begins

1720s

1729: Province of Carolina proprietors sell out to Crown

1730s

1733 - Province of Georgia founded
1734 - The First Great Awakening (1730s to 1760s) begins with the preaching of Jonathan Edwards
1735 - John Peter Zenger trial on freedom of the press issues
1739 - George Whitefield tours the colonies (1739-1741) to preach the Great Awakening

1740s

1740 - King George's War (War of the Austrian Succession) begins
1748 - King George's War ends with the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle

1750s

1752 - Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment
1754 - French and Indian War begins
1758 - Treaty of Easton
1759 - Battle of the Plains of Abraham, part of the Battle of Quebec (1759)

1760s

1760 - King George III crowned
1763 - Treaty of Paris (1763) ends French and Indian War
1763 - Pontiac's Rebellion begin
1763 - British Royal Proclamation of 1763
1764 - Currency Act, passed by Parliament
1764 - Revenue Act is passed to enforce the Sugar and Molasses Act
1765 - Stamp Act passed
1765 - Stamp Act Congress convenes
1765 - First Quartering Act
1767 - Townshend Acts

1770s

1770 - Boston Massacre
1771 - Battle of Alamance in North Carolina
1772 - Samuel Adams organizes the Committees of Correspondence
1773 - British Parliament passes Tea Act
1773 - Boston Tea Party
1774 - First Continental Congress
1774 - Dunmore's War
1774 - British pass Intolerable Acts, including:
Boston Port Act (March 31)
Administration of Justice Act (May 20),
Massachusetts Government Act (May 20),
Second Quartering Act (June 2), and
Quebec Act
1774 - Burning of the HMS Peggy Stewart
1775 - Battle of Lexington and Concord
1775 - Battle of Bunker Hill
1775 - Second Continental Congress
1775 - Olive Branch Petition sent to King George III
1776 - New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution
1776 - Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense
1776 - Declaration of Independence
1776 - Battle of Trenton (December 26)
1777 - Second Battle of Trenton (January 2)
1777 - Battle of Princeton (January 3)
1777 - Battle of Bound Brook (April 13)
1777 - Battle of Oriskany (August 6)
1777 - Battle of Brandywine (September 11)
1777 - Battle of Paoli (Paoli Massacre) (September 20)
1777 - British occupation of Philadelphia (September 26)
1777 - Battle of Germantown (October 4)
1777 - Battle of Saratoga (October 7)
1777 - Articles of Confederation adopted by the Second Continental Congress (November 15)
1777 - Battle of White Marsh (December 5-December 8)
1777 - Battle of Matson's Ford (December 11)
1777 - Vermont, as the Republic of Vermont, passes the Constitution of Vermont, the first in the nation to outlaw slavery
1777-1778 - Continental Army in winter quarters at Valley Forge (December 19-June 19)
1778 - Treaty of Alliance (February 6)
1778 - Battle of Barren Hill (May 20)
1778 - British occupation of Philadelphia ends (June)
 
1780s

1781 - Articles of Confederation ratified
1781 - British surrender at Yorktown
1781 - Bank of North America chartered
1783 - Treaty of Paris (1783) ends United States Revolutionary War
1785 - Treaty of Hopewell
1786 - Shays' Rebellion
1786 - Annapolis Convention fails
1787 - Northwest Ordinance of 1787
1787 - Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
1787 - Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey ratify the constitution
1788 - Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York ratify the constitution
1789 - Constitution goes into effect
1789 - George Washington becomes President
1789 - Judiciary Act of 1789
1789 - Hamilton tariff
1789 - Jay-Gardoqui Treaty
1789 - North Carolina ratifies the constitution

1790s

1790 - Rhode Island ratifies the constitution
1791 - Bill of Rights ratified
1791 - First Bank of the United States chartered
1791 - Vermont, formerly part of New York, becomes the 14th state
1792 - Kentucky, formerly part of Virginia, becomes the 15th state
1792 - Samuel Slater creates first European designed factory
1793 - Eli Whitney invents cotton gin
1793 - Fugitive Slave Act passed
1793 - Chisholm v. Georgia 2 US 419 1793 paves way for passage of 11th Amendment
1794 - Whiskey Rebellion
1794 - Battle of Fallen Timbers
1795 - Treaty of Greenville
1795 - Jay Treaty
1795 - 11th Amendment
1796 - Tennessee, formerly part of North Carolina, becomes a state
1796 - Pinckney's Treaty
1796 - Treaty with Tripoli
1797 - John Adams (Federalist) inaugurated, Jefferson (Republican) Vice-President
1797 - XYZ Affair
1798 - Alien and Sedition Acts
1798 - Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
1799 - George Washington dies
1799 - Fries Uprising
1799 - Logan Act

1800s

1800 - Library of Congress founded
1801 - Thomas Jefferson becomes President
1803 - Marbury v. Madison 5 US 137 1803 allows U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate law passed by the United States Congress for first time: the Judiciary Act of 1789
1803 - Louisiana Purchase Treaty
1803 - Ohio becomes a state
1804 - 12th Amendment
1804 - New Jersey abolishes slavery
1804 - Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton duel
1804 - Lewis and Clark set out
1807 - Embargo Act of 1807
1807 - Robert Fulton invents steamboat
1808 - U.S. slave trade with Africa ends
1809 - James Madison becomes President
1809 - Non-Intercourse Act

1810s

1810 - Fletcher v. Peck 10 US 87 1810 marks first time U.S. Supreme Court invalidates state legislative act
1811 - First Bank of the United States expires
1812 - War of 1812 begins
1812 - Daniel Webster elected to the United States Congress
1812 - Louisiana becomes a state
1814 - Treaty of Ghent settles War of 1812
1816 - Indiana becomes a state
1816 - Second Bank of the United States chartered
1817 - James Monroe becomes President
1817 - Rush-Bagot Treaty
1817 - Harvard Law School founded
1817 - Mississippi becomes a state
1818 - Cumberland Road opened
1818 - Illinois becomes a state
1818 - Jackson Purchase in Kentucky
1819 - Panic of 1819
1819 - Adams-Onís Treaty, including acquisition of Florida
1819 - McCulloch v. Maryland 17 US 316 1819 prohibits state laws from infringing upon Federal constitutional authority
1819 - Dartmouth College v. Woodward 17 US 518 1819 protects principle of honoring contracts and charters
1819 - Alabama becomes a state

1820s

1820 - Missouri Compromise
1820 - Maine becomes a state
1821 - Missouri becomes a state
1823 - Monroe Doctrine
1824 - Gibbons v. Ogden affirms federal over state authority in interstate commerce
1824 - Election of 1824
1825 - Erie Canal completed
1825 - John Quincy Adams becomes the President
1828 - South Carolina Exposition and Protest was published during the Nullification Crisis
1828 - Election of 1828
1829 - Andrew Jackson becomes the President

1830s

early 1830s-Oregon Trail comes into use
1830 - Indian Removal Act
1831 - Nat Turner's revolt
1831 - The Liberator begins publication
1831 - Cyrus McCormick invents the reaper
1831 - Eaton Affair
1832 - Worcester v. State of Georgia - U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Cherokees; President Jackson ignores the ruling
1832 - Black Hawk War
1832 - Tariff of 1832
1832 - Ordinance of Nullification passed by South Carolina
1832 - Seminole War begins
1832 - Department of Indian Affairs established
1832 - Jackson re-elected amid struggle with Nicholas Biddle over the fate of the Second Bank of the United States; this struggle leads to the Panic of 1837
1833 - Force Bill passed
1834 - Slavery debates at Lane Theological Seminary
1835 - Texas War for Independence begins
1835 - Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America published
1836 - Battle of the Alamo, Battle of San Jacinto
1836 - Creek War of 1836
1836 - Samuel Colt invents revolver
1836 - Gag Rule imposed
1836 - Specie Circular issued
1836 - Arkansas becomes a state
1837 - Martin Van Buren becomes President
1837 - U.S. recognizes the Republic of Texas
1837 - Caroline Affair
1837 - Michigan becomes a state
1837 - Oberlin College enrolls first female students, first coeducation in United States
1837 - Panic of 1837
1837 - Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge reverses Dartmouth College v. Woodward; property rights can be overridden by public need
1838-1839 - The Trail of Tears
1838 - Aroostook War
1839 - Amistad case

1840s

1841 - William Henry Harrison becomes President and dies
1841 - John Tyler becomes President
1842 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty
1844 - U.S. presidential election, 1844
1844 - Oregon message
1845 - James K. Polk becomes President
1845 - Texas Annexation
1845 - Florida and Texas become states
1846 - The Mexican War begins
1846 - Iowa becomes a state
1846 - Wilmot Proviso
1848 - Zachary Taylor elected as President
1848 - Wisconsin becomes a state
1849 - California Gold Rush begins

1850s

1850 - Millard Fillmore becomes President
1850 - Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
1850 - Compromise of 1850 passed
1850 - California becomes a state
1853 - Franklin Pierce becomes President
1853 - Commodore Matthew Perry opens Japan
1853 - Gadsden Purchase
1854 - Kansas-Nebraska Act; nullified Missouri Compromise
1854 - Ostend Manifesto
1854 - Convention of Kanagawa
1854 - Walker Expedition
1856 - Sack of Lawrence, Kansas
1856 - Pottawatomie Massacre
1856 - Preston Brooks canes Charles Sumner on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building
1857 - James Buchanan becomes President
1857 - Dred Scott v. Sandford 60 US 393 1857 declares that blacks are not citizens of the United States and cannot sue
1857 - LeCompton Constitution rejected in Kansas Territory
1857 - Panic of 1857
1858 - Transatlantic cable laid
1858 - Minnesota becomes a state
1858 - Lincoln-Douglas Debates
1858 - U.S. is party to Treaty of Tientsin
1859 - Harper's Ferry Raid (John Brown's Raid)
1859 - Comstock Lode discovered
1859 - Darwin's Origin of Species published

1860s

1860 - Duckie Express begins
1860 - Crittenden Compromise
1860 - South Carolina secedes
1861 - Abraham Lincoln becomes President
1861 - Confederate States of America (the Confederacy) established under President Jefferson Davis
1861 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter , federal court case which objected to Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus
1861 - First Battle of Bull Run
1862 - Homestead Act
1862 - Pacific Railway Act
1862 - Morrill Land Grant Colleges Act
1862 - Battle of Antietam
1862 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
1863 - National Banking Act of 1863
1863 - Battle of Gettysburg
1863 - Pro-Union counties become sovereign state of West Virginia
1863 - New York Draft Riots
1864 - National Banking Act of 1864
1864 - Wade-Davis Bill
1864 - Sand Creek Massacre
1864 - Maximilian Affair
1864 - Nevada becomes a state
1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassinated
1865 - Andrew Johnson becomes President
1865 - Civil War ends
1865 - 13th Amendment
1865 - Freedman's Bureau
1865 - Cornell University founded under the 1862 Morrill Act
1866 - Civil Rights Act of 1866
1866 - Ku Klux Klan founded
1866 - Ex parte Milligan 71 US 2 1866 rules that civilians cannot be tried in military tribunals when civilian courts are available
1867 - Tenure of Office Act
1867 - The Grange founded
1867 - Reconstruction Acts
1867 - Alaska Purchase from Russia
1867 - Nebraska becomes a state
1867 - Medicine Lodge Treaty
1868 - Burlingame Treaty
1868 - 14th Amendment
1868 - University of California chartered
1868 - Carnegie Steel Company founded
1868 - Typewriter invented
1868 - Treaty of Fort Laramie with Lakota nation
1869 - Ulysses S. Grant becomes President
1869 - Wyoming becomes first state to grant woman suffrage
1869 - Golden spike nailed in, completing the First Transcontinental Railroad (North America)
1869 - James Fisk and Jay Gould's "Black Friday"
1869 - Knights of Labor formed

1870s

1870 - 15th Amendment
1870 - First graduate programs (at Yale and Harvard)
1870 - Force Acts
1871 - Great Chicago Fire
1871 - Treaty of Washington with the British Empire regarding the Dominion of Canada
1872 - Yellowstone National Park created
1872 - Crédit Mobilier scandal
1872 - Amnesty Act
1872 - Alabama Claims
1873 - Panic of 1873
1873 - Virginius Affair
1874 - Red River Indian War
1875 - Aristides wins first Kentucky Derby
1875 - Resumption Act
1875 - Civil Rights Act of 1875
1876 - National League of baseball founded
1876 - Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
1876 - Munn v. Illinois establishes public regulation of utilities
1876 - Colorado becomes a state
1876 - Battle of Little Bighorn
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
1877 - Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President and Reconstruction ends with the Compromise of 1877
1877 - Nez Perce War
1878 - Bland-Allison Act
1878 - Morgan silver dollars first minted
1879 - Thomas Edison invents light bulb
1879 - Knights of Labor go public

1880s

1880 - U.S. population exceeds 50 million
1881 - James Garfield inaugurated as President
1881 - James Garfield assassinated
1881 - Chester A. Arthur inaugurated as President
1881 - Clara Barton creates Red Cross
1881 - Tuskegee Institute founded
1881 - A Century of Dishonor written by Helen Hunt Jackson
1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act and European Restriction Act
1883 - Civil Rights Cases 109 US 3 1883 legalizes doctrine of segregation
1883 - Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
1883 - Brooklyn Bridge opens
1885 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated as President
1885 - Washington monument completed
1885 - Stanford University founded
1886 - Haymarket Riot
1886 - American Federation of Labor founded in Columbus, Ohio
1887 - The United States Congress creates Interstate Commerce Commission
1887 - Dawes Act
1887 - Hatch Act
1888 - Publication of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
1888 - National Geographic Society founded
1889 - Benjamin Harrison becomes President
1889 - North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington become states
1889 - Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania
1889 - Jane Addams founds Hull House

1890s

1890 - Sherman Antitrust Act
1890 - Jacob Riis published "How the Other Half Lives"
1890 - Sherman Silver Purchase Act
1890 - McKinley tariff
1890 - Yosemite National Park created
1890 - Idaho and Wyoming become states
1890 - Wounded Knee Massacre
1890 - National American Woman Suffrage Association founded
1891 - Baltimore Crisis
1892 - Homestead Strike
1892 - General Electric Company founded
1892 - Sierra Club founded
1893 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated President for second term
1893 - Panic of 1893
1893 - Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed
1894 - Coxey's Army
1894 - Pullman strike
1894 - Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, including Income Tax
1895 - Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company strikes down part of Wilson-Gorman Tariff
1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson 163 US 537 1896 affirms the idea of "separate but equal"
1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech
1896 - Gold discovered in the Yukon's Klondike
1896 - Utah becomes a state
1896 - Hawaii annexed
1897 - William McKinley becomes President 
Wreckage of the USS Maine1897 - Boston subway completed
1897 - Dingley tariff
1898 - USS Maine explodes in Havana, Cuba harbor, precipitating the Spanish-American War
1898 - De Lôme Letter
1898 - Treaty of Paris (1898) ends Spanish-American War
1898 - Newlands Resolution
1898 - American Anti-Imperialist League organized
1899 - Teller Amendment
1899 - American Samoa occupied
1899 - Open Door Notes

1900s

1900 - U.S. population exceeds 75 million
1900 - Foraker Act
1900 - Gold Standard Act
1900 - U.S. helps put down Boxer Rebellion
1901 - William McKinley assassinated
1901 - Theodore Roosevelt becomes President
1901 - U.S. Steel founded by John Pierpont Morgan
1901 - Platt Amendment
1901 - Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
1902 - Drago Doctrine
1902 - First Rose Bowl game played
1902 - Newlands Reclamation Act
1903 - Great Train Robbery movie opens
1903 - Ford Motor Company formed
1903 - First World Series
1903 - Elkins Act
1903 - Big Stick Diplomacy
1903 - Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty
1903 - Hay-Herran Treaty
1903 - Department of Commerce and Labor created
1904 - Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine
1904 - Panama Canal Zone acquired
1905 - Niagara Falls conference
1905 - Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) formed
1906 - Algeciras Conference
1906 - Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act
1906 - Hepburn Act
1906 - Theodore Roosevelt negotiates Treaty of Portsmouth, receives Nobel Peace Prize
1907 - Oklahoma becomes a state
1907 - Gentlemen's Agreement
1908 - Ford Model T appears on market
1908 - Root-Takahira agreement
1908 - Federal Bureau of Investigation established
1908 - Aldrich Vreeland Act
1909 - The U.S. penny is changed to the Abraham Lincoln design
1909 - William Howard Taft becomes President
1909 - Robert Peary plants American flag at North Pole
1909 - NAACP founded by W. E. B. DuBois
1909 - Payne-Aldrich tariff
1909 - Taft implements Dollar Diplomacy
1909 - Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy

1910s

1910 - Boy Scouts of America chartered
1910 - Mann-Elkins Act
1910 - Mann Act
1911 - Supreme Court breaks up Standard Oil
1912 - RMS Titanic sinks
1912 - New Mexico and Arizona become states
1913 - Woodrow Wilson becomes President
1913 - Federal Reserve Act
1913 - 16th Amendment
1913 - 17th Amendment
1913 - Underwood tariff
1914 - Mother's Day created
1914 - Federal Trade Commission created
1914 - Clayton Antitrust Act
1914 - ABC Powers
1915 - The Birth of a Nation opens
1915 - RMS Lusitania sunk
1916 - U.S. acquires Virgin Islands
1916 - Jeannette Rankin elected
1916 - Louis Brandeis appointed to Supreme Court
1916 - Adamson Railway Labor Act
1916 - Federal Farm Loan Act
1917 - Zimmermann telegram
1917 - U.S. enters World War I
1917 - Espionage and Sedition Acts
1917 - Lansing-Ishii Agreement
1917 - U.S. Virgin Islands purchased from Denmark
1918 - President Wilson's Fourteen Points
1919 - Treaty of Versailles ends World War I
1919 - United States Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations
1919 - 18th Amendment
1919-1920 Red Scare (Note: The time that this event occurred can be debated. These are the two major years.)

1920s

1920 - 19th Amendment
1920 - U.S. population tops 100 million
1920 - Sacco and Vanzetti arrested
1920 - First radio broadcast in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1920 - Volstead Act
1920 - Esch-Cummins Act
1921 - Warren G. Harding becomes President
1921 - Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921
1921 - Emergency Quota Act
1922 - Fordney-McCumber tariff
1923 - Warren G. Harding dies
1923 - Calvin Coolidge becomes President
1923 - Yankee Stadium opens
1923 - Teapot Dome Scandal
1924 - Immigration Act Basic Law
1925 - Scopes trial
1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross elected
1927 - Sacco and Vanzetti executed
1927 - Charles Lindbergh makes first trans-Atlantic flight
1927 - The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie" (motion picture with sound) is released
1927 - U.S. citizenship granted to inhabitants of U.S. Virgin Islands
1928 - Disney's Steamboat Willie opens
1928 - Kellogg-Briand Pact
1929 - Herbert Hoover becomes President
1929 - St. Valentine's Day massacre
1929 - Immigration Act
1929 - Great Depression begins
1929 - American Samoa officially becomes a U.S. territory

1930s

1931 - Empire State Building opens
1931 - Japan invades Manchuria
1932 - Stimson Doctrine
1932 - Norris-Laguardia Act
1932 - Bonus Army marches on DC
1932 - Amelia Earhart flies across Atlantic Ocean
1932 - Reconstruction Finance Corporation
1933 - 20th Amendment
1933 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes President
1933 - Agricultural Adjustment Act
1933 - Civil Works Administration
1933 - Civilian Conservation Corps
1933 - Farm Credit Administration
1933 - Home Owners Loan Corporation
1933 - Tennessee Valley Authority
1933 - Public Works Administration
1933 - National (Industrial) Recovery Act
1933 - Giuseppe Zangara kills Anton Cermak
1933 - Frances Perkins appointed United States Secretary of Labor
1933 - Montevideo Conference
1933 - 21st Amendment
1933 - Japan and Germany withdraw from League of Nations
1933 - Good Neighbor Policy announced
1934 - Glass-Steagal Act
1934 - U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
1934 - Dust Bowl begins
1934 - Federal Housing Administration
1934 - Johnson Act
1934 - Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
1934 - Tydings-McDuffie Act
1934 - John Dillinger killed
1934 - Indian Reorganization Act
1934 - Share the Wealth society founded by Huey Long
1935 - Works Progress Administration
1935 - Neutrality Act
1935 - Motor Carrier Act
1935 - Social Security Act
1935 - Schechter Poultry Corporation v. US
1935 - National Labor Relations Act
1935 - Huey Long assassinated
1935 - Congress of Industrial Organizations formed
1935 - Alcoholics Anonymous founded
1935 - Revenue Act
1936 - Robinson Patman Act
1936 - Life Magazine begins
1936 - Butler v. US
1936 - London Conference on disarmament
1937 - Neutrality Acts
1937 - Hindenburg disaster
1937 - Japanese planes sink Panay in China
1937 - Golden Gate Bridge completed
1938 - Wheeler Lea Act
1938 - Fair Labor Standards Act
1939 - Hatch Act
1938 - Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds broadcast
1939 - Germany invades Poland; World War II begins
1939 - Cash and Carry

1940s

1940 - Selective Service Act
1940 - Alien Registration (Smith) Act
1941 - Lend Lease Act
1941 - Attack on Pearl Harbor
1941 - U.S. enters World War II
1941 - Atlantic Charter
1941 - Japanese-American internment begins
1942 - Office of Price Administration
1942 - Cocoanut Grove fire
1942 - Congress of Racial Equality
1942 - Revenue Act of 1942
1942 - U.S.-controlled Commonwealth of the Philippines conquered by Japanese forces
1943 - Office of Price Administration established
1943 - Detroit, Michigan race riots
1943 - Cairo Conference
1943 - Casablanca Conference
1943 - Tehran Conference
1944 - Dumbarton Oaks Conference
1944 - GI Bill of Rights
1944 - D-Day
1944 - Bretton Woods Conference
1944 - Battle of the Bulge
1945 - Yalta Conference
1945 - U.S. takes Okinawa
1945 - U.S. joins the United Nations
1945 - Nationwide labor strikes due to inflation; OPA disbanded
1945 - atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1945 - Germany and Japan surrender, ending World War II
1945 - Potsdam Conference
1945 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies
1945 - Harry S. Truman becomes President
1946 - Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech
1946 - Benjamin Spock's Child Care book published
1946 - Employment Act
1946 - Atomic Energy Act
1946 - Civil Rights Commission
1946 - Philippines regain their independence from the U.S.
1947 - Presidential Succession Act
1947 - Taft Hartley Act
1947 - U.F.O. crash at Roswell, New Mexico
1947 - National Security Act
1947 - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
1947 - The Marshall Plan
1947 - Polaroid Camera invented
1947 - Truman Doctrine
1947 - Federal Employee Loyalty Program
1947 - Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier in baseball
1948 - Berlin Blockade
1948 - Election of 1948: Truman defeats Dewey
1948 - Truman desegregates armed forces
1948 - Selective Service Act: Passed after first such act expired
1948 - Organization of American States: Alliance of North America and South America
1948 - Alger Hiss Case
1948 - Nuremberg trials
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) formed
1949 - In China, Communists under Mao Zedong force Chiang Kai-shek's KMT government to retreat to Taiwan
1949 - Russia tests its first atomic bomb
1949 - Department of War becomes Department of Defense
1949 - Germany divided into East and West
1949 - Truman attempts to continue FDR's legacy with his Fair Deal, but most acts don't pass
1949 - Dystopian future novel Nineteen Eighty-Four published by George Orwell

1950s

1950 - Senator Joseph McCarthy gains power, and McCarthyism (1950-1954) begins
1950 - McCarran Internal Security Act
1950 - Korean War begins
1950 - National Security Council Memo 68
1951 - 22nd Amendment
1951 - Mutual Security Act
1951 - General Douglas MacArthur fired by Truman for comments about using nuclear weapons on China
1952 - ANZUS Treaty enters into force
1952 - Immigration and Nationality Act
1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes President
1953 - Rosenbergs executed
1953 - Armistice in Korea
1953 - Shah of Iran returns to power in CIA-orchestrated coup known as Operation Ajax
1954 - Joseph McCarthy discredited in Army-McCarthy hearings
1954 - The CIA organises the overthrow of Guatemala's democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (Operation PBSUCCESS)
1954 - Saint Lawrence Seaway Act
1954 - Baghdad Pact
1954 - Brown v. Board of Education
1954 - SEATO alliance
1954 - Fall of Dien Bien Phu; End of French rule in Indochina
1954 - Geneva Conference (1954)
1954 - The People's Republic of China lays siege on Quemoy and Matsu Islands; Eisenhower sends in navy
1955 - Rosa Parks incites Montgomery Bus Boycott
1955 - AFL and CIO merge in America's largest labor union
1955 - Warsaw Pact
1955 - Jonas Salk develops polio vaccine
1956 - Interstate Highway Act
1956 - US refuses to support the Hungarian Revolution
1956 - US installs Diem as leader of South Vietnam
1957 - Eisenhower Doctrine
1957 - Civil Rights Act of 1957
1957 - Russians launch Sputnik; "space race" begins
1957 - First nuclear power plant goes into service
1957 - Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation
1958 - National Defense Education Act
1958 - NASA formed
1958 - The integrated circuit created
1959 - Cuban Revolution
1959 - Landrum-Griffin Act
1959 - Alaska and Hawaii become states

1960s

1960 - U-2 incident
1960 - Greensboro sit-in
1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1960
1960 - National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam formed
1961 - John F. Kennedy becomes President
1961 - 23rd Amendment
1961 - Peace Corps
1961 - Alliance for Progress
1961 - Bay of Pigs Invasion
1961 - Trade embargo on Cuba
1961 - Berlin Crisis
1961 - Diem assassinated
1961 - Vietnam War officially begins with 900 military advisors landing in Saigon
1961 - OPEC formed
1962 - Trade Expansion Act
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
1962 - Baker v. Carr
1962 - Engel v. Vitale
1962 - Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
 
Kennedy's motorcade on November 22, 19631963 - John F. Kennedy assassinated
1963 - Lyndon Johnson becomes President
1963 - Atomic Test Ban Treaty
1963 - March on Washington; Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream" speech
1963 - The Feminine Mystique published
1964 - Tonkin Gulf incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
1964 - 24th Amendment
1964 - Great Society proposed
1964 - Economic Opportunity Act
1964 - Civil Rights Act of 1964
1964 - Full Employment Act
1964 - Canal Zone riots
1965 - Immigration Act of 1965
1965 - Voting Rights Act
1965 - Medicaid and Medicare enacted
1965 - Higher Education Act - Federal Scholarships
1965 - Watts Riot; Detroit race riot; "long hot summer"
1966 - Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) established
1966 - Department of Transportation created
1966 - National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
1966 - Miranda v. Arizona establishes "Miranda rights"
1966 - Feminist group National Organization for Women (NOW) formed
1967 - 25th Amendment
1967 - American Samoa becomes self-governing under new constitution
1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
1968 - Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
1968 - The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive
1968 - Civil Rights Act of 1968
1968 - U.S. signs Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
1969 - Richard Nixon becomes President
1969 - "Vietnamization" begins
1969 - Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, Earth's only natural satellite
1969 - Warren E. Burger appointed Chief Justice of the United States to replace Earl Warren
1969 - U.S. bombs North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia and Laos

1970s
1970 - Kent State shootings
1970 - Environmental Protection Agency created
1971 - 26th Amendment ratified
1972 - U.S. presidential election, 1972 (including Watergate burglary, Richard Nixon re-elected)
1972 - Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with USSR
1973 - Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling over-turns state laws against abortion
1973 - Skylab, USA's first space station launched
1974 - Richard Nixon resigns Presidency over Watergate
1974 - Gerald R. Ford becomes President (by succession rather than election)
1975 - Fall of Saigon
1976 - U.S. presidential election, 1976
1977 - Jimmy Carter becomes President
1978 - Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act
1978 - Camp David Accords (1978)
1979 - Three Mile Island nuclear accident
1979 - Iran hostage crisis begins

1980s
 
President Reagan was the face of the United States during the 1980s1980 - John Lennon Assassination
1980 - Refugee Act
1980 - Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington kills 57 (see 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens)
1980 - U.S. boycotts Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
1980 - U.S. presidential election, 1980
1981 - Ronald Reagan becomes President (Iran releases hostages)
1981 - Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley
1981 - Kemp-Roth Tax Cut
1983 - 241 U.S. Marines killed by suicide bomb in Lebanon
1983 - United States invades Grenada
1984 - Most of Eastern Bloc boycotts Summer Olympics in Los Angeles
1984 - U.S. presidential election, 1984 (Ronald Reagan is re-elected)
1985 - Bernhard Goetz is indicted on charges of attempted murder
1986 - Iran-Contra scandal breaks
1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger accident
1986 - Tax Reform Act of 1986
1986 - Gramm Rudman Hollings Balanced Budget Act
1986 - Marshall Islands become independent
1987 - Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 22.6% in single session on Black Monday
1987 - Dennis Conner onboard "Stars & Stripes" returns the America's Cup to America.
1988 - Discovery launched as first post-Challenger space shuttle flight
1988 - U.S. presidential election, 1988
1988 - Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty went into effect.
1989 - George H. W. Bush becomes President
1989 - Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake kills 63 in greater San Francisco Bay Area

1990s
1990 - Hubble Space Telescope placed in orbit
1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait leading to 1991 Gulf War
1991 - Gulf War
1991 - Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3469 homes and apartments
1992 - 1992 Los Angeles riots kill 50-60 people and cause nearly $1 billion damage
1992 - 27th Amendment ratified
1992 - Hurricane Andrew kills 23 and causes $26.5 billion in damage as it strikes Florida and later Louisiana
1992 - U.S. presidential election, 1992
1993 - Bill Clinton becomes President
1993 - World Trade Center bombing kills 6 and injures at least 1040
1993 - Branch Davidians standoff and fire in Waco, Texas
1994 - Northridge earthquake kills 57 in Los Angeles area
1994 - North American Free Trade Agreement goes into effect
1995 - Following the 1994 elections, Republicans gain control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1955.
1995 - 168 killed in Oklahoma City bombing
1995 - O.J. Simpson acquitted of murder
1996 - TWA flight 800 explodes off of Long Island killing all 230 aboard
1996 - Khobar Towers bombing leaves 19 U.S. servicemen dead in Saudi Arabia
1996 - Centennial Olympic Park bombing at Summer Olympics in Atlanta kills 1 and injures 11
1996 - U.S. presidential election, 1996 (Bill Clinton is re-elected)
1997 - President Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning.
1998 - 224 killed in 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya
1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 216 on board.
1999 - Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado
1999 - President Clinton is acquitted in impeachment trial by U.S. Senate

2000s
2000 - USS Cole bombing in Yemen
2000 - U.S. presidential election, 2000; George W. Bush wins by 537 votes in Florida in contested election.
2001 - Democrats gain narrow control of Senate after James Jeffords defects from the Republican Party.
2001 - September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon
2001 - Invasion of Afghanistan Operation "Enduring Freedom"
2002 - Department of Homeland Security created.
2002 - U.S. withdraws from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2003 - Republicans retake narrow control of Senate following 2002 elections.
2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
2003 - Invasion of Iraq Operation "Iraqi Freedom" commences.
2004 - Occupation of Iraq, 2003-2004
2004 - The 2004 Atlantic hurricane season had numerous unusual occurrences impacting U.S. properties
2004 - U.S. presidential election, 2004 (George W. Bush is re-elected).
2004 - Republicans solidify control in both houses of Congress.
2005 - The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season takes its toll in the Southeast, most notably, Hurricane Katrina became the costliest hurricane of all time.
2006 - Democrats retake control of both houses of Congress, and gain a majority of state governorships (28-22).
2007 - Virginia Tech massacre