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The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in Europe and the Americans that emphasized one's rights to happiness, liberty, toleration, constitutional government, and freedom to live the way one wants to live.

This event is significant because it started provided to the Founding Father's the basis of their revolutionary spirit and the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment are the principles which the US was founded on. The Age of Enlightenment represents the birth of the idea of America, a birth that would soon come.

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The 7 Years War, or the French and Indian War, was a war fought between France and its colonies and Great Britain and its colonies. The fighting occurred all around the world, including in the North American colonies. Was won by Great Britain and her allies.

The 7 Years War was the expensive, and from the British perspective, a battle to protect her colonies just as much as it was a battle to protect her. As such, in order to pay for the expenses of the war, Britain began to tax the colonists. The resistance towards taxes would lead to the independence and founding of the US.

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July 4th, 1776 - Signing of Declaration of Independence

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July 4th, 1776 - Signing of Declaration of Independence

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The signing of the DOI marks the point in history when the US becomes its own nation, not controlled by a foreign entity. Also marks the beginning of the War for Independence.

The DOI and its signing represent the point in US history were it can be called US history, as the signing of the DOI meant the birth of the US.

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September 3rd, 1783 - Signing of the Treaty of Paris

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September 3rd, 1783 - Signing of the Treaty of Paris

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The signing of the Treaty of Paris meant the end of the War for Independence, with Great Britain formally withdrawing itself from the North American Colonies.

The end of the War for Independence meant for the fledgling US that it could begin to focus not on war but on establishing a new country based on the ideals of Enlightenment that inspired the Founding Fathers to declare independence in the first place.

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June 21, 1788 - Ratification of the US Constitution

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June 21, 1788 - Ratification of the US Constitution

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New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratify the newly written US Constitution, meaning that the 9 of 13 state threshold had been met to replace the objectivity bad Articles of Confederation with the newly written US Constitution.

The US Constitution has since become the founding bedrock for the American government and its peoples. The US before the Constitution was a weakly organized set of mini-countries that operated nothing like they would compared to modern times. With the new US Constitution, the US's government and organization truly began.

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Samuel Slater built the first factory in America, at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, after learning the trade secrets of textile factories from Great Britain.

The establishment of the first factory in America represent the beginning of the industrial revolution for Americans and it also began to sew divisions in the nation in the background. The largely industrialized North and more agrarian South came to increasingly be at odds as industrialization spread and time moved forward, culminating later into the Civil War.

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The Louisiana Purchase was the buying of nearly 828000000 square miles of new land to the US from France.

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the US and it can be said to have started the Westward expansion of people on the East Coast. This Westward expansion would bring more states into the Union and opportunity for a larger population.

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President Monroe issued a statement to Congress and the world saying that Europe needed to stay out of North and South American affairs and the US would stay out of European affairs.

The Monroe Doctrine represents the beginning of the near century long policy of American foreign policy of isolation. This meant that America would stay out of foreign affairs for the better part of almost a century.

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February 2nd, 1848 - Signing of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

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February 2nd, 1848 - Signing of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

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The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was the end to the Mexican-American War, adding Texas and most of the land West of the Rocky Mountains to the US. This added to the notion of Manifest Destiny, or the inevitability for Americans to settle lands west of the Mississippi River.

The end of the war meant that continental America began to look like it does in modern times and fulfilled the notion of Manifest Destiny in the minds of Americans, however it also added to fuel to the fire of the growing flame of the tension between North and South, more specifically are the new states to become free or slaves states.

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Dred Scott v Sandford was a landmark case in the battle between abolitionists and slave supporters. The ruling of the case was that black men, whether free or enslaved, had "no rights which a white man was bound to respect".

Although not the only point in history when abolitionists and slave supporters fought viciously over the question of slavery, the ruling of the case was one of the most significant points in the long conflict and the ruling of the case would lead in part to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President.

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November 6, 1860 - Abraham Lincoln elected President of the US

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November 6, 1860 - Abraham Lincoln elected President of the US

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Without the support of any Southern electoral college votes, Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in a landslide. Although not looking to abolish slavery, Lincoln wanted slavery to be contained and not spread to states outside of the ones that it already was in.

The election of Lincoln can be said to represent the beginning of the Civil War. South Carolina would be the first state to secede from the Union only 1 month later with other slave states following suit. The fighting of the Civil War and it's conclusions would dramatically change the social and political landscapes of America.

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January 1st, 1863 - Emancipation Proclamation

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January 1st, 1863 - Emancipation Proclamation

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In this executive order, President Lincoln abolished slavery in the United States, although not immediatly freeing the millions of slaves in the South, the Proclamation made it so that the Civil War was now being fought on the moral grounds of ending slavery.

The EP made it so that the ideals of the DOI and US Constitution about freedom for all in the US would be extended to everyone, and although civil rights for black Americans would take many years to get, the EP began the path towards true American ideals.

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The Battle of Gettysburg was fought between the Union and the Confederacy, 46,000 - 51,000 casualties total.

The Battle of Gettysburg represented a significant turning point in the Civil War. The Union victory at Gettysburg meant that the Confederacy's attempt to end the war quickly was denied and marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. This battle made it so that the Union would win the war, eventually, and the US would be once again united.

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This case made it so that racial segregation on the condition of "separate but equal" was legally allowed in the US, however in practice the "equal" was not achieved and this case made Jim Crow laws in the South legal.

This case represents the hard conditions that many newly freed slaves faced during the time of Reconstruction, and it represents the hardships that had to be overcome in order to win civil rights. The ruling of this case has a significance because it lays the foundation of how southern society post-Civil War would look like, that is, segregated by race.

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After receiving information from the British that Germany planned to support a Mexican war with America, among other reasons, the US joined the war effort as a part of the Allies, Britain and France.

The joining of America into WWI represents the ending of the isolationism that had dominated American foreign policy for almost a century. Although after the surrender of Germany America tried to return to its policy of isolationism, the ending of this policy during WWI set the groundwork for modern US involvement in the world at large.

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After nearly a decade of growth and prosperity, the economic situation of America began to unravel beginning with the crash of the stock market and the run on banks by depositors.

The Great Depression and the following legislation and expansion of government that occurred as a result drastically changed the relationship between American Citizens and their government. Government before the GD has relatively minimal, however after the GD a new relationship was formed between the government and the citizen by expanding the powers of the government and making the government a bigger part of everyday life.

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December 7th, 1941 - Pearl Harbor, America's entry into WWII

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December 7th, 1941 - Pearl Harbor, America's entry into WWII

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After trade of vital materials needed for the war effort in south east Asia was denied to Japan from America, Japan decided to preemptively strike America in a surprise attack to try to weaken the US enough to knock out the US before it could destroy Japan.

The attack on Pearl Harbor marked the official entrance of America into WWII. The significance of this entry can be explained with the significance of the war, a war that would determine the fate of the world leading powers and thus the world for the future.

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June 6, 1944 - D-Day, Invasion of Europe by America and Britain

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June 6, 1944 - D-Day, Invasion of Europe by America and Britain

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America, Britain, and the French forces that were in Britain began an invasion of Europe from Normandy France, marking another significant blow to Nazi control of Europe and eventually leading to the collapse of Nazism.

Although not the most significant turning point in momentum for the war, the whole Eastern Campaign can be said to be a turning point, D-Day did represent the hastening to the end of Nazi Germany. Not only would the end of Nazi Germany change the power landscape of Europe, America's involvement during the invasion meant that America was becoming and increasingly large role in the affairs of the world.

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Japanese leaders officially signed the documents of surrender on this date, ending WWII.

The end of WWII meant the beginning of a new era. America was the single nation involved in the conflict that was not left severely damaged by the onslaught of the war, and as a result it meant that America became the leader of Western ideals and it would be up to America to lead its allies and maintain peace on the global stage, a position that would have once been unthinkable to the isolationists mere decades prior.

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America joins the UN and becomes a permanent member of the UN Security Council

The joining of America as a part of the UN made it so that the UN would have more power than its predecessor, the League of Nations. The UN, with the support of America, was therefore able to fulfill its intended duties better than what the League of Nations was able to do.