EASY READ United States history
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EASY READ A timeline of United States history. (2025). In Q-files Encyclopedia, History, EASY READ United States history. Retrieved from
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"EASY READ A timeline of United States history." History, EASY READ United States history, Q-files Encyclopedia, 5 Dec. 2025.
https://www.q-files.com/history/easy-read-united-states-history/easy-read-a-timeline-of-united-states-history.
Accessed 13 Sep. 2026.
EASY READ A timeline of United States history 2025. History, EASY READ United States history. Retrieved 13 September 2026, from
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History, EASY READ United States history, s.v. "EASY READ A timeline of United States history," accessed September 13, 2026.
https://www.q-files.com/history/easy-read-united-states-history/easy-read-a-timeline-of-united-states-history
A timeline of United States history
When a date has "c." in front of it, for example c.3100 BC, it means the date is approximate. We do not know exactly when the event took place (c. stands for circa, the Latin word for “about”).
BC = Before Christ. It is the same as BCE (Before the Common Era)
AD = Anno Domini, meaning "The Year of Our Lord". It is the same as CE (Common Era)
c. 26,500–12,000 years ago A "land bridge" connects Asia and North America. Groups of hunter-gatherers migrate from Siberia to Alaska.
c. 15,000 years ago People start moving south along the west coast of the Americas as the coast becomes ice-free.
c. 13,000–12,000 years ago The giant ice sheet that has been covering much of the interior of northern North America starts melting. Now people are able to migrate south through the centre of the continent.
c.13,000–11,000 years ago People hunt mammoths, mastodons, bison and tapir across what is now the United States.
c. 9500 BC The climate becomes warmer and drier. Many giant prehistoric animals die out. Most people still travel around hunting big game, but some groups become more settled. They hunt rabbits, deer, antelope and bighorn sheep.
c. 3500 BC The first earthwork mounds are built, in what is now Louisiana.
c. 1750–700 BC Some people start to settle in villages in the lower Mississippi Valley near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, e.g. Poverty Point in northeastern Louisiana.
c. 2100 BC Maize is grown for the first time in what is now the southwestern United States.
c. 2000 BC Some people in this region begin producing rock paintings.
c. 1500 BC Ancestral Puebloans start their culture in the present-day “Four Corners” region of the United States (southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado). They cultivate maize and squash.
c. 1000–200 BC Adena culture flourishes in the central Ohio valley, beginning what is called the Woodland period.
c. 200 BC–500 AD Hopewell culture: a variety of different peoples settle along the rivers of today's northeastern and midwestern United States.
c. 700–1200 People build flat-topped platform mounds arranged around central plazas in the Lower Mississippi Valley.
c. 850 Puebloans start to build multi-storey villages, or “great houses”, out of adobe (mudbrick) and stone.
c. 1000–1500 Mississippian culture: a number of chiefdoms flourish in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and throughout the southeast United States.
c. 1450 Iroquois League is formed from a confederation of five Iroquois nations: Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga and Seneca.
1513 The first official European expedition to North America is led by Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, who lands in Florida and claims the region for Spain.
1524 Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano lands in Chesapeake Bay. He explores the Atlantic coast of North America, including New York Bay.
1539–42 Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto lands in Tampa Bay, Florida. He travels north to today's Georgia, and the Carolinas, before turning west through Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas. He is the first European known to have seen the Mississippi River.
1540–42 Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado leads an expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through the American Southwest.
1542–43 A Spanish naval expedition, led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, explores the coast of California.
1565 St Augustine, in present-day Florida, is founded by the Spanish. It is the first permanent European settlement in North America.
1579 The English adventurer Francis Drake explores and claims part of the California coast for England. He lands near Point Reyes, north of today’s San Francisco.
1607 Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America, is founded by the London Company. After surviving setbacks, the settlers make a living by growing and selling tobacco.
1609 Sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, English explorer Henry Hudson enters New York Bay. He claims the region for the Dutch. At the same time, northern New York is claimed for France by French explorer Samuel de Champlain.
1610 Santa Fe, New Mexico, is founded by Spanish colonists.
1610–46 The Anglo-Powhatan Wars, fought between the English settlers of the Virginia Colony, and Indians of the Powhatan Confederacy.
1614–20 Dutch and English seafarers visiting New England introduce diseases, such as smallpox, which wipe out up to 90% of the native population.
1619 The first African slaves are brought to Jamestown.
1620 Plymouth Colony, near Cape Cod in Massachusetts, is founded by the Pilgrims (religious exiles from England) arriving on the Mayflower.
1624 The Dutch West India Company founds the colony of New Netherland in the Hudson Valley.
1626 Dutchman Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from the Native Americans and founds the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.
1630s Settlements are founded by English Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1638 New Sweden, a Swedish colony, is established along the Delaware River.
1655 New Sweden is taken over by the Dutch Republic and added to the Dutch colonies of New Netherland.
1664 English capture New Amsterdam from the Dutch and rename it New York.
1667 New Netherland is handed over to England under the terms of the Treaty of Breda.
1681 The Province of Pennsylvania is founded by Englishman William Penn. Thousands of Baptists and Quakers from England, along with Protestants from Germany and Switzerland, will later come to settle in Pennsylvania.
1682 French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explores the Ohio River valley and the Mississippi River valley, and claims the entire territory for France. This area becomes known as French Louisiana (La Louisiane).
1718 Settlers from New Spain establish a settlement at present-day San Antonio, Texas.
1754–63 French and Indian War: the British are victorious and gain control of Canada and all the French possessions east of the Mississippi. Spain hands over Florida to Britain in exchange for control of Cuba.
1769 Spanish establish a mission in San Diego Bay, the first in California. Missions are also founded at San Francisco (1776) and Los Angeles (1781).
1770 Boston Massacre: British troops fire into a mob protesting against unpopular laws made by the British Parliament. This encourages rebellion.
1773 Boston Tea Party: a group of Patriots (rebels against British rule) disguised as Mohawk Indians board three ships in Boston harbour and dump more than 300 crates of tea overboard as a protest against the British tea tax.
1774 First Continental Congress, with leaders from all of the Thirteen Colonies except Georgia, meets in Philadelphia.
1775–83 American Revolutionary War breaks out between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775.
1775 Second Continental Congress, now representing all the Thirteen Colonies, meets in Philadelphia in May. In June, Congress votes to create the Continental Army with George Washington as commanding general.
1776 The Thirteen Colonies declare independence from Britain.
1781 British General Cornwallis surrenders to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.
1783 Britain formally accepts American independence in the Treaty of Paris, which officially ends the war. Following Britain's defeat, Spain regains Florida.
1787 Founding Fathers draw up new constitution in Philadelphia. It comes into effect in 1788.
1789 George Washington is unanimously elected President of the United States. Congress meets for the first time, at Federal Hall in New York City.
1791 First ten amendments to the Constitution, guaranteeing individual freedoms, are approved.
1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin. This enables the mass production of cotton. The demand for slave labour in the South to cultivate cotton will increase rapidly from now on.
1800 The US capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. Gabriel Prosser, an African American slave, organizes a slave revolt, but it is uncovered.
1801 Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated as the third president in Washington, D.C.
1803 Louisiana Purchase: France agrees to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million. As a result, the US now extends as far west as the Rocky Mountains—nearly doubling its size.
1804–06 American explorers Lewis and Clark undertake an expedition to explore the West and find a route to the Pacific Ocean.
1808 Atlantic slave trade is abolished.
1812–14 War breaks out between the US and Britain over British interference with American shipping during the Napoleonic Wars. The British capture Washington, D.C, and set fire to the White House and Capitol.
1819 Adams-Onis Treaty: Spain agrees to give Florida to the United States in return for complete control of Texas.
1820 Missouri Compromise: in order to keep the balance between free and slave states, Maine (formerly part of Massachusetts) is admitted to the Union as a free state so that Missouri can be admitted as a slave state.
1821 Mexican War of Independence gives Mexico independence from Spain. California, the American Southwest and Texas now become Mexican possessions.
1823 Monroe Doctrine: President Monroe declares opposition to any European attempt to recolonize any of the recently independent countries of the Americas. At the same time, the US promises not to become involved in the concerns of European countries.
1825 The Erie Canal, linking the Hudson River with Lake Erie, is opened for traffic.
1830 President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, which authorizes the forced removal of Native Americans living in the east to lands west of the Mississippi River.
1830s–50s Thousands of immigrants, especially from Ireland (driven by the Irish Potato Famine, 1845–49) and Germany, as well as from Britain and France, arrive in the US.
1831 Nat Turner, an African American slave, leads an uprising in Southampton County, Virginia. Local militias brutally crush the rebellion.
1836 Texas declares its independence from Mexico. During a siege by the Mexican army, the Texan defenders of the Alamo are massacred. The Texans defeat Mexico at San Jacinto and gain their independence.
1838 More than 15,000 Cherokee Indians are forced to march from Georgia to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Around 4000 Indians die from disease and starvation on the “Trail of Tears”.
1840s–60s Thousands of people travel west on the Oregon and California trails to settle lands on the Pacific coast.
1845 US annexes Texas.
1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain: US-Canadian border is fixed at the 49th parallel.
1846–48 Following victory in the Mexican-American War, the US gains present-day California, and large areas of the southwest.
1848 Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill in California. The Gold Rush reaches its height the following year.
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She later helps hundreds of slaves to escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
1854 Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which enables residents of the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether to permit slavery or not. This results in outbreaks of violence between anti- and pro-slavery factions in Kansas, known as “Bleeding Kansas" (1854–59).
1860 Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln is elected president, causing South Carolina to secede (break away) from the Union because of his anti-slavery views.
1861 An additional 10 pro-slavery Southern states secede from the Union. The Confederate States of America is established and Jefferson Davis is elected president. Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States.
1861–65 Civil War: Confederates attack Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861 marking the start of the war.
1862 Homestead Act becomes law. It allows settlers to claim 160 acres (65 hectares) of public land in the West. Over the next 30 years, thousands set up homesteads on the Plains.
1863 Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in the Confederate states free. Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address.
1865 Union General Ulysses S. Grant captures Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders. Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Washington, D.C, and is succeeded by his vice president, Andrew Johnson. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, prohibiting slavery.
1867 US acquires Alaska from Russia.
1868 Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, granting birthright citizenship to former slaves.
1869 Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads meet at Promontory Summit, Utah, creating the first transcontinental railroad.
1870 Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving African American men the right to vote.
1876 The Great Sioux War is fought between the United States and the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. During the conflict, American troops under Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer are crushed by an alliance of Native American forces under Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
1880s–1920s Huge numbers of immigrants, made up mostly of Russians, Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles and Jews, but also people from countries including Sweden, Norway, Lebanon, Syria and French Canada, flood into the United States.
1890 US troops finally defeat the Sioux at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.
1898 US gains Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines from Spain following victory in the Spanish-American War. Cuba becomes an independent republic. US annexes Hawaii.
1903 Inventors Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first controlled, sustained flight in an aeroplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1906 San Francisco earthquake destroys a large part of the city and leaves 3000 dead.
1914 US-owned Panama Canal is opened.
1916–30 Great Migration: around 6 million African American people move from mostly rural areas in the South to find work in the industrial cities of the North.
1917 Following the sinking of several American ships by German submarines, the United States declares war on Germany and enters World War I.
1918 Woodrow Wilson lists Fourteen Points in a speech setting out his plans for peace at the end of World War I.
1920 Sale of alcohol is outlawed, beginning the Prohibition era of gangsterism. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, granting women the right to vote.
1927 Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis.
1929 Wall Street Crash: a boom on the American Stock Market in Wall Street, New York, comes to a sudden end.
1929–33 Great Depression: as the supply of money dries up, exports decline sharply, people stop spending and the world’s economy grinds to a halt. The result is mass unemployment.
1930s Dust Bowl: a period of severe dust storms in the Great Plains, caused by drought and excessive ploughing. It forces tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families to abandon their farms and travel west to California.
1932 Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas becomes the first woman elected to the US Senate. Amelia Earhart completes the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight by a woman.
1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd president. He launches the New Deal to tackle the Great Depression and spark an economic recovery. Prohibition is ended.
1941 Japanese warplanes attack US fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. US enters World War II by declaring war on Japan. US forces halt the Japanese expansion in the Pacific at the Battle of Midway (1942). The US joins the Allies in the effort to defeat Germany. The Allies land in France on D-Day (1944).
1945 President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta in the USSR to discuss postwar occupation of Germany. Roosevelt dies and is succeeded by his vice president, Harry S. Truman. Germany surrenders. US drops two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to the surrender of Japan.
1947 Truman Doctrine: a policy of giving aid for nations threatened by Communism is announced. It marks the beginning of the Cold War.
1948 Congress passes Marshall Plan, a programme of aid to European countries. US begins airlifts of supplies to West Berlin, blockaded by the Soviet Union.
1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is established. Berlin blockade is ended.
1950–53 Korean War. War breaks out after Communist North Korea invades South Korea. President Truman commits American troops to intervention. Armistice agreement is signed in 1953.
1954 Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. Start of campaign of civil disobedience to secure civil rights for African Americans.
1959 Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states.
1961 John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president. Bay of Pigs invasion: a US attempt to invade and take over Cuba fails.
1962 John Glenn becomes the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth. Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy accuses Soviet Union of secretly installing nuclear missiles on Cuba and orders a naval blockade of the island. The Soviet Union agrees to withdraw weapons in a secret deal by which the US agrees also to dismantle its missiles positioned in Turkey against the Soviet Union.
1963 Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King gives his “I Have a Dream” speech during the civil rights march on Washington, D.C. President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. He is succeeded in office by his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson.
1964 US steps up its military intervention in Vietnam. President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act: it outlaws discrimination on grounds of race, colour, religion or nationality.
1965 US planes begin bombing raids of North Vietnam, while the first US troops arrive in South Vietnam.
1968 North Vietnamese army and Viet Cong launch Tet Offensive, attacking Saigon and other key cities in South Vietnam. American soldiers carry out My Lai massacre. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy, is assassinated in Los Angeles.
1969 US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon.
1972 President Nixon makes historic visit to China. Members of Nixon's re-election campaign are caught breaking into rival Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
1973 North and South Vietnam, the Viet Cong and the US sign a ceasefire agreement in Paris. US troops leave Vietnam.
1974 Nixon announces his resignation.
1978 President Carter meets with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin at Camp David, where they sign an accord ending 30-year conflict between Egypt and Israel.
1979 Accident at Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania causes near-meltdown.
1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after take-off; all seven crew members are killed.
1987 In a speech in Berlin, President Reagan challenges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
1989 Oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing the largest oil spill in US history.
1991 Gulf War: US leads military operation, codenamed “Desert Storm”, to drive Iraqi army out of Kuwait. US and Soviet Union sign START I treaty, agreeing to reduce nuclear arms.
1992 End of the Cold War declared.
1995 Bombing of federal office building in Oklahoma City kills 168 people.
1999 Senate acquits Clinton of impeachment charges.
2001 George W. Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd president. On 11th September, two hijacked airliners crash into the twin towers of World Trade Center; a third plane flies into the Pentagon, while a fourth crashes in rural Pennsylvania. More than 3000 people die in the worst terrorist attack against the US in history. US leads an attack on Afghanistan, after it fails to hand over al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of masterminding the 9/11 attacks.
2003 US leads attack on Iraq aiming to remove the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power.
2005 Hundreds of people are killed when Hurricane Katrina sweeps through states on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Much of the city of New Orleans is flooded.
2008 Turmoil in the financial markets as major Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers collapses.
2009 Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th president, the first African American to become US president.
2010 An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico causes the biggest oil spill in US history.
2011 US forces kill al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The final Space Shuttle mission is completed, bringing the 30-year programme to an end.
2014 The shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white policeman sparks weeks of riots in Ferguson, Missouri.
2017 President Donald Trump is inaugurated.
2020 Killing of unarmed black man George Floyd by white policeman in Minneapolis sparks nationwide protests.
2020 Covid-19 pandemic breaks out.
2021 (January) Following a rally led by President Trump, who refuses to concede his loss in the 2020 presidential election, a group of his supporters violently storm the US Capitol.
2021 (July) American troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan, ending US involvement in the war that began in 2001.
2025 President Donald Trump, the first man since Grover Cleveland to be elected president for a separate second term, is inaugurated.
Consultant: Philip Parker
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