US HISTORY I

Timeline Section #1 Project

1492 through 1773
PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS Page #1
Each student will draft 4 events from this
timeline, and research each of those 4 events
in order to complete the required work
For each of your 4 events, you will write an
accurate and complete paragraph (5-7
sentences each) explaining the following two
elements:
Summary of the event, in detail
Significance of the event, how and why was it so
PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS Page #2
At the bottom of each slide, you are to rank
each historical event on a scale of 1-5, with a
sentence or two explaining how and why you
reached this conclusion.
1 = Extremely significant/important; vital to US I
2 = Very significant; important to understanding US I
3 = This event is of average significance to US I
4 = Noteworthy to US I, and with some significance
5= Noteworthy, perhaps, but largely insignificant
PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS Page #3
Each student will present their slides to our class,
as called upon through a chronological order.
Presentations will begin next Monday, October
20, 2014. All slides will be due complete that day.
We are dedicating this entire weeks class periods
to individual student researchwe will report to
the library Tuesday through Friday.
This assignment counts as a project grade, and
includes the slides and presentations.
PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS Page #4
Upon completion of all the slide presentations,
we will decide as a class which events will be
posted to our class timelines, likely all 1s, most
2s, & some 3s.
To get started (after our draft), I will e-mail this
presentation to you (give me your e-mail address
either school or other).
Before school on Monday 1/20, you must e-mail
me back with your slides completed as instructed
herein.
QUESTIONS????????
c. 1500- c. 1650: Spanish Golden Age &
Conquistadores
Summary:


Significance:



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1507: Amerigo Vespucci
Summary:
In the years following Columbus voyage, many explorers set out on their own to discover the New
World. These explorers included an Italian sailor named Amerigo Vespucci, who travelled primarily to
the east coast of what is South America. It was about 1507 that a German mapmaker suggested the
New World be named in Vespuccis honor, new because this generations ancestors had no
knowledge of these continents. The name took hold over the course of the years that followed.


Significance:
The naming of the South and North American continents is clearly significant, because we still use the
name today. In fact, our country fully adopted the name, becoming The United States of America,
making us Americans to this day! However, this event is not really a singular event, per se, nor was
Vespucci alone as an explorer in this New World



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3 of 5Significant for the usage of the name, but not necessarily for the event itself.
1513: Ponce de Leon in Florida,
searching for the Fountain of Youth
Summary:


Significance:



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1519: Hernan Cotes conquers Aztecs
Summary:


Significance:



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1539-1542: Hernando de Soto
Summary:


Significance:



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1565: St. Augustine, FL
Summary:


Significance:



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1558: Queen Elizabeth I takes the
English Throne
Summary:


Significance:



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1578: Sir Francis Drake &
The Sea Dogs
Summary:


Significance:



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1578: Queen Elizabeth grants a
charter to Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Summary:


Significance:



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1585 - 1591: Sir Walter Raleigh, &
the false start at Roanoke Island
Summary:


Significance:



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1588: Spanish Armada sets out to
attack England
Summary:


Significance:



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1606: The creation of
Joint-Stock Companies:
Summary:
Roanoke had been an abject failure, but the New World still held much promise and intrigue for the
English. The creation of joint-stock companies allowed shareholders to disperse the risks of
exploration, such that one could claim a piece of the exploration without bearing total risk for
bankruptcy and very life by doing so, as the earlier explorers had to.


Significance:
The creation of the joint-stock companies enabled the English King, James I, to grant huge portions of
North American land to English explorers and their financier joint-stockholders. Thus England became
the most dominant nation in the great exploration of this new continent.


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1 of 5Perhaps England was well poised to dominate exploration anyway, but the joint-stock companies
ensured this would be the case. To this day, it is the English language and traditions, including those of
governance, that dominate modern American culture. Not only that, but the joint-stock companies
paved the way for the creation of future corporation philisophy in business economics!
1607: Settlement at Jamestown
Summary:


Significance:



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1609-1610: The Starving Time
Summary:


Significance:



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1612: John Rolfe, American Tobacco,
and the first Plantation
Summary:


Significance:



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1619: The first slave ship arrives in
America, at Jamestown
Summary:
In 1619, a Dutch ship arrived at the Port of Jamestown in Virginia carrying a cargo of 20 black Africans
to be sold and used as slaves in the colony, for purposes such as farming the staple crops of tobacco and
cotton.

Significance:
In Howard Zinns book, a black author by the name of J. Saunders Redding writes no ship in modern
history has carried a more portentous freight. Unlike white, European indentured servants, the black
African slaves are unable to one day work off or purchase their freedom, and thus the color line had
been drawn. It is this singular event, one can argue, that sets the stage not only for the institution of
slavery which occurs legally over the course of the next 150 years, but also the very idea of white
supremacy and racism throughout American history. Not only that, it must be accounted for that the
early American colonies (particularly in the South) could not have succeeded economically anywhere
near the degree to which they ultimately did were it not for the advantages that free slave labor
provided.

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1 of 5This is a monumentally important event marking both a huge advancement (economically) and a
dark, disturbing period (re: human rights) in American history.
1620: The Mayflower lands;
Mayflower Compact (Cape Cod)
Summary:


Significance:



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1629: Puritans establish the
Massachusetts Bay Joint Stock Co.
Summary:


Significance:



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1634: The Maryland Colony
is established
Summary:


Significance:



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1640: The Great Migration
Summary:


Significance:



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1649: Marylands Toleration Act
Summary:


Significance:



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1641: Virginia tops 1MM lbs in
exported tobacco
Summary:


Significance:



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1649: The Toleration Act of 1649
Summary:


Significance:



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1651: The Navigation & Trade Acts
Summary:


Significance:



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1663: Carolina is established
Summary:


Significance:



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1664: King Charles II begins claim for
New Netherland
Summary:


Significance:



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1675-1676: Metacom, &
King Phillips War
Summary:


Significance:



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1676: Bacons Rebellion
Summary:


Significance:



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1681: William Penn and the Quakers
establish Pennsylvania
Summary:


Significance:



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1686: The Dominion of New England
Summary:


Significance:



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1688: New Jersey joins
the Dominion of New England
Summary:


Significance:



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1692: The Salem Witch Trials
Summary:


Significance:



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1739: George Whitefield visits America
Summary:


Significance:



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1746: Eliza Lucas perfects indigo crop;
exports 40K+ lbs
Summary:
Eliza Lucas (Eliza Lucas Pinckney), using slave labor on plantations in South Carolina,
perfected the science of planting, growing, and harvesting the indigo crop, valuable
for trade with England as a dye (blue) for clothing. In 1746, because of her efforts,
over 40,000 lbs were exportedand this amount doubled the following year.

Significance:
Along with cotton, tobacco, and rice, indigo was a major staple crop in the Southern
Colonies. These crops allowed the colonies significant economic growth and
expansion.


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4 of 5Indigo was one of four major staple crops in the south, and despite the fact
that Eliza Lucas is credited with the advancement, she could not have realized it
without the extensive use of slave labor. Nevertheless, her work served as a notable
milestone for the growth of the Southern Colonies.

1750: The Scientific Revolution
begins to sweep America
Summary:


Significance:



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1754-1763: The French & Indian War
Summary:


Significance:



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1773: Georgia is established
Summary:


Significance:



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