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| "king of kings" or "emperor", of the Malian Empire. At the time of the rise to the throne, the Malian Empire consisted of territory formerly belonging to the Ghana Empire and Melle (Mali) and immediate surrounding areas, and he held many titles, including Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, and conqueror of Ghanata, Futa-Jallon, and at least another dozen states.[1] He was perhaps the wealthiest ruler of his day. Pilgrimage to mecca |
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| a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, it was one of the largest Islamic empires in history.[3] This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city of Gao, where a Songhai state had existed since the 11th century, sonni alli. |
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| a period of European economic expansion, colonialism, and mercantilism which lasted from approximately the 16th century until the early 18th century. Beginning with the Crusades, Europeans rediscovered spices, silks, and other commodities rare in Europe. This development created a new desire for trade, and trade expanded in the second half of the Middle Ages. European nations, through voyages of discovery, were looking for new trade routes in the 15th and 16th centuries, which allowed the European powers to build vast, new international trade networks. |
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| refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed the paperwork.[1] They included men and women; most were under age 21, and most became helpers on farms or house servants. In terms of living conditions and discipline, they were usually treated like relatives. They were not paid cash. |
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| (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans. He "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian,"[3] and one of America's greatest intellectuals.[4] His theological work is very broad in scope, but he is often associated with his defense of Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly he grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset. He played a very critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first fires of revival in 1733–1735 at his church - First Church - in Northampton, Massachusetts |
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(January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705[1]] – April 17, 1790) Born in Boston, descendent of Puritans
• Phillidelphia, published the Pennsylvania Gazette
• The poor mans almanac
• Founded a library, organized debating club, and university that later became the University of Penn
• He was devoted to science; the lightning rod and the franklin stove
• Wasn’t bothered by the state of his soul like Puritans
• Deist; believed God made the world and let it run through natural laws |
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| a system in which descent is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. It is also a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles. |
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| period from the late sixteenth century to the nineteenth century in which there was a marked increase in consumption of various goods and products by individuals from different economic and social backgrounds. It allowed a diverse group of individuals to purchase similar items, that previously may have only been available to those of middle to upper classes. This revolution allowed individuals who were not necessarily wealthy to indulge, and consume products that were necessity as well as those that were not. |
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| spread through the British North American colonies in the middle of the 18th century. In A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737), Jonathan Edwards, a leader in the Awakening, describes his congregants vivid experiences with grace as causing a "new light" in their perpective on sin and atonement.[1] Old Lights and New Lights generally referred to Congregationalists and Baptists in New England who took different positions on the Awakening than the traditional branches of their denominations. New Lights embraced the revivals that spread through the colonies, while Old Lights were suspicious of the revivals (and their seeming threat to authority). |
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| Limitation of consuming imported goods as a statement to England during the Revolution and a consumption of their own goods |
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| In the early stages of the American Revolution, colonists in the Thirteen Colonies rejected legislation imposed upon them by the British Parliament because the colonies were not represented in Parliament. According to the British constitution, colonists argued, taxes could only be levied on British subjects with their consent. Because the colonists were represented only in their provincial assemblies, they said, only those legislatures could levy taxes in the colonies. This concept was famously expressed as "No taxation without representation." |
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1774 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 14 Geo. III c. 83) setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. The principal components of the act were:
• The province's territory was expanded to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, plus Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota.
• The oath of allegiance was replaced with one that no longer made reference to the Protestant faith.
• It guaranteed free practice of the Catholic faith.
• It restored the use of the French civil law for private matters while maintaining the use of the English common law for public administration, including criminal prosecution.
• In the Thirteen Colonies, the Act, which had been passed in the same session of Parliament as a number of other acts designed as punishment for the Boston Tea Party and other protests, was joined to those acts as one of the Intolerable Acts. |
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| From the Enlightenment on it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between the descriptions and definitions of the "republic" concept on the one side, and the ideologies based on such descriptions on the other. Oliver Cromwell set up a republic called the Commonwealth of England (1649–1660) and ruled as a near dictator after the overthrow of King Charles I. A leading philosopher of republicanism was James Harrington. The collapse of the Commonwealth of England in 1660 and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II discredited republicanism among England's ruling circles. However they welcomed the liberalism and emphasis on rights of John Locke, which played a major role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Nevertheless republicanism flourished in the "country" party of the early 18th century. That party denounced the corruption of the "court" party, producing a political theory that heavily influenced the American colonists. In general the ruling classes of the 18th century vehemently opposed republicanism, as typified by the attacks on John Wilkes, and especially by the American Revolution and the French Revolution |
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| a treaty between the United States and Great Britain that is credited with averting war,[2] resolving some issues remaining since the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the American Revolution,[3] and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which had begun in 1792. |
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(c. 1539 – 9 September 1583)[1] of Devon in England was a half-brother (through his mother) of Sir Walter Raleigh.[1] Adventurer, explorer, member of parliament, and soldier, he served during the reign of Queen Elizabeth[1] and was a pioneer of English colonization in North America and the Plantations of Ireland. Veteran of campaigns against Irish in 1560s
• Initiated English colonization efforts
• Aimed to increase English trade and provide opportunity for unemployed Englishmen
• Set up colony of Newfoundland in 1583 |
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(1585 – 1622) was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.
• In 1961, the Jamestown Foundation of the Commonwealth of Virginia (now the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation) offered a $500 award for "the best historical information" on his "appearance and mannerisms". |
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| began in Jamestown, Virginia in 1618[1] as an attempt to solve labor shortages due to the advent of the tobacco economy, which required large plots of land with many workers. The disproportion that existed between the amount of land available and the population created a situation with a low supply of labor, resulting in the growth of indentured servitude and slavery. The headright system was also a way to attract immigrants. Colonists who had already been living in Virginia were each given two headrights of 50 acres (200,000 m²); immigrant colonists who paid for their passage were given one headright, and individuals would subsequently receive one headright each time they paid for the passage of another individual. This last mechanism increased the division between the wealthy land-owners and the working poor. Headrights were given to heads-of-households and because 50 acres were accumulated for each member of the household, families had an incentive to make the passage to the colonies together |
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was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. The long-held theory that it was an outbreak of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis had been challenged by a number of scholars from the 1970s, but has been supported by genetic studies published since 2010. Thought to have started in China, it travelled along the Silk Road and had reached the Crimea by 1346. From there, probably carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, it spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. It is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population,[1] reducing the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. This has been seen as having created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. The plague returned at various times, killing more people, until it left Europe in the 19th century. Estimates say it took 30% of Europes population
• Came from Asia less effect there
• 1300-1450 Small Ice Age; created famines
• 50% less population at the the 14th century
• Fewer workers, more efficient, rely on technological improvements
• Western Europe experienced the Rennaisance |
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(10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation; for which he stands as herold.[1] He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
• Emphasized good works
• You get into heaven by not doing things but having good faith in God
• Guttenburg 1440 for printing press to spread ideas
• Transformed from a religious to a political movement |
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Used generally to describe a series of economic events from the second half of the 15th century to the first half of the 17th, it refers most specifically to the relatively high rate of inflation that characterized the period across Western Europe, with prices on average rising perhaps sixfold over 150 years.
• It was once thought that this high inflation was caused by the large influx of gold and silver from the Spanish treasure fleet from the New World, especially the silver of Bolivia and Mexico which began to be mined in large quantities from 1545. According to this theory, too many people with too much money chased too few goods.
• The start of the price rises actually predated the large-scale influx of bullion from across the Atlantic, reflecting in part a quintupling of silver production in central Europe in 1460-1530: though this output fell by two-thirds by the 1610s, it was significant in fueling the early stages of inflation that undermined a price regime in place since the previous upsurge in silver production in 1170-1320.
• Demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with the revival (from around the third quarter of the 15th century) of European population growth after the century of depopulation and demographic stagnation that had followed the Black Death. |
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(25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727 [NS: 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727])[1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."[7]
• His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the Scientific Revolution. The Principia is generally considered to be one of the most important scientific books ever written.
• He built the first practical reflecting telescope[8] and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. |
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| 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), widely known as the Father of Liberalism,[2][3][4] was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the American Declaration of Independence. |
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| an uprising in 1676 in the Virginia Colony in North America, led by a 29-year-old planter, Nathaniel Bacon. About a thousand Virginians rose (including former indentured servants, poor white and slaves) because they resented Virginia Governor William Berkeley's friendly policies towards the Native Americans. When Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of Indian attacks on frontier settlements, others took matters into their own hands, attacking Indians, chasing Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia, and torching the capital. It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part; a similar uprising in Maryland occurred later that year. A protest against raids on the frontier; some historians also consider it a power play by Bacon against Berkeley, and his policies of favoring his own court. Their alliance disturbed the ruling class, who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery.[1][2] While the farmers did not succeed in their goal of driving Native Americans from Virginia, the rebellion did result in Berkeley being recalled to England. |
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| a slave rebellion that commenced on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution.[1] One of the earliest known organized rebellions in the present United States, the uprising was led by native Africans who were Catholic and likely from the Kingdom of Kongo, which had been Catholic since 1491. Some of the Kongolese spoke Portuguese. Their leader, Jemmy (referred to in some reports as "Cato", and probably a slave belonging to the Cato, or Cater, family who lived just off the Ashley River and north of the Stono River) was a literate slave who led 20 other enslaved Kongolese, who may have been former soldiers, in an armed march south from the Stono River (for which the rebellion is named). They recruited nearly 60 other slaves and killed 22–25 whites before being intercepted by the South Carolina militia near the Edisto River. In that battle, 20 whites and 44 slaves were killed, and the rebellion was largely suppressed. A group of slaves escaped and traveled another 30 miles (50 km) before battling a week later with the militia. Most of the captured slaves were executed; a few survived to be sold to the West Indies. In response to the rebellion, the South Carolina legislature passed the Negro Act of 1740 restricting slave assembly, education and movement. It also enacted a 10-year moratorium against importing African slaves, and established penalties against slaveholders' harsh treatment of slaves. It required legislative approval for manumissions, which slaveholders had previously been able to arrange privately. |
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| a war that was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes primarily from the Great Lakes region, the Illinois Country, and Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British postwar policies in the Great Lakes region after the British victory in the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous tribes joined the uprising in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after the Ottawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many native leaders in the conflict. The war began in May 1763 when Native Americans, offended by the policies of British General Jeffrey Amherst, attacked a number of British forts and settlements. Eight forts were destroyed, and hundreds of colonists were killed or captured, with many more fleeing the region. Hostilities came to an end after British Army expeditions in 1764 led to peace negotiations over the next two years. Native Americans were unable to drive away the British, but the uprising prompted the British government to modify the policies that had provoked the conflict. Warfare on the North American frontier was brutal, and the killing of prisoners, the targeting of civilians, and other atrocities were widespread. In what is now perhaps the best-known incident of the war, British officers at Fort Pitt attempted to infect the besieging Native Americans with smallpox using blankets that had been exposed to the virus. |
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| a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it. The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented. |
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| Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom |
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| drafted in 1777 (though it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779)[1] by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph.[2] It supported the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and freedom of conscience. |
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| (1751–1820) was an early American advocate for women's rights, an essayist, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes—that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be able to achieve economic independence. Her landmark essay "On the Equality of the Sexes," published in the Massachusetts Magazine in March and April 1790 predated Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which was published in Britain in 1792 and in Philadelphia in 1794. |
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| Massachusetts Bay Company |
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| colony was founded included investors in the failed Dorchester Company, which had in 1624 established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann. The second attempt, begun in 1628, was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance was dominated by a small group of leaders who were strongly influenced by Puritan religious leaders. Although its governors were elected, the electorate were limited to freemen, who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted to their church. As a |
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| (12 January 1587/8[1] – 26 March 1649) was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. He led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years of existence. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the government and religion of neighboring colonies. |
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| (December 21, 1603 – April 1, 1683) was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. He started the first Baptist church in America, the First Baptist Church of Providence, before leaving to become a Seeker. He was a student of Native American languages and an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans. |
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| was a Nahua altepetl (city-state) located on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. Founded in 1325, it became the capital of the abounding Aztec Empire in the 15th century,[1] until captured by the Spanish in 1521. When paired with Mexico the name is a reference to Mexica, the people of the surrounding Aztec heartland. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and today the ruins of Tenochtitlan are located in the central part of Mexico City. |
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1. The construction of large, truncated earthwork pyramid mounds, or platform mounds. Such mounds were usually square, rectangular, or occasionally circular. Structures (domestic houses, temples, burial buildings, or other) were usually constructed atop such mounds.
2. Maize-based agriculture. In most places, the development of Mississippian culture coincided with adoption of comparatively large-scale, intensive maize agriculture, which supported larger populations and craft specialization.
3. The adoption and use of riverine (or more rarely marine) shell-tempering agents in their ceramics.
4. Widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rockies, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean.
5. The development of the chiefdom or complex chiefdom level of social complexity.
6. The development of institutionalized social inequality.
7. A centralization of control of combined political and religious power in the hands of few or one.
8. The beginnings of a settlement hierarchy, in which one major center (with mounds) has clear influence or control over a number of lesser communities, which may or may not possess a smaller number of mounds.
9. The adoption of the paraphernalia of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC), also called the Southern Cult. This is the belief system of the Mississippians as we know it. SECC items are found in Mississippian-culture sites from Wisconsin (see Aztalan State Park) to the Gulf Coast, and from Florida to Arkansas and Oklahoma. The SECC was frequently tied in to ritual game-playing, as with chunkey. |
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| an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts (mainly Springfield) from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The rebellion started on August 29, 1786, over financial difficulties and by January 1787, over one thousand Shaysites had been arrested. A militia that had been raised as a private army defeated an attack on the federal Springfield Armory by the main Shaysite force on February 3, 1787, and five rebels were killed in the action. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Philadelphia Convention which began on May 17, 1787. Shays' Rebellion produced fears that the Revolution's democratic impulse had gotten out of hand |
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| a period of almost 800 years (539 years in Portugal) in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus. This period of Al-Andalus began soon after the Islamic conquest with the formation of the Kingdom of Asturias by the Visigoths under the leadership of the nobleman Pelagius |
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| was governor of the colony of Virginia from 1641–1652 and 1660–1677. As proprietor of Green Spring Plantation in James City County, he experimented with activities such as growing silkworms as part of his efforts to expand the tobacco-based economy. He enacted friendly policies toward the Native Americans that led to the revolt by some of the planters in 1676 which became known as Bacon's Rebellion. In the aftermath, King Charles II was angered by the retribution exacted against the rebels by him, and recalled him to England |
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| an agreement between large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It retained the bicameral legislature as proposed by James Madison, along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states. |
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| a compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in which three-fifths of the enumerated population of slaves would be counted for representation purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. It was proposed by delegates James Wilson and Roger Sherman. |
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a historical document issued on November 7, 1775, by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, royal governor of the British Colony of Virginia.
The Proclamation declared martial law[1] and promised freedom for slaves of American patriots who left their masters and joined the royal forces. Dunmore expected such a revolt to have several effects. Primarily, it would bolster his own forces, which, cut off from reinforcements from British-held Boston, numbered only around 300.[2] Secondarily, he hoped that such an uprising would create panic amongst the colonists and would force them to abandon the revolution. |
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| took place on December 26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, after General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey. The hazardous crossing in adverse weather made it possible for Washington to lead the main body of the Continental Army against Hessian soldiers garrisoned at Trenton. After a brief battle, nearly the entire Hessian force was captured, with negligible losses to the Americans. The battle significantly boosted the Continental Army's flagging morale, and inspired re-enlistments. Despite the battle's small numbers, the American victory inspired rebels in the colonies. With the success of the revolution in doubt a week earlier, the army had seemed on the verge of collapse. The dramatic victory inspired soldiers to serve longer and attracted new recruits to the ranks. |
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were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress. In the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams. Opposition to Federalists among Democratic-Republicans reached new heights at this time since the Democratic-Republicans had supported France. Some even seemed to want an event similar to the French Revolution to come to America to overthrow the Federalists.[1] When Democratic-Republicans in some states refused to enforce federal laws, and even threatened possible rebellion, Federalists threatened to send in an army and force them to capitulate.[2] As the paranoia sweeping Europe was bleeding over into America, calls for secession reached unparalleled heights, and America seemed ready to rip itself apart.[3] Some of this was seen by Federalists as having been caused by French and French-sympathizing immigrants. The acts were thus meant to guard against this real threat of anarchy. Democratic-Republicans denounced them as being both unconstitutional and designed to stifle criticism of the administration, and as infringing on the right of the states to act in these areas, though they did use them after the 1800 election against Federalists.[4] They became a major political issue in the elections of 1798 and 1800. They were very controversial in their own day, as they remain to the present day. Opposition to them resulted in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which were foundational to the states rights theory that helped lead to the Civil War. The Naturalization Act (officially An act supplementary to, and to amend the act to establish a uniform rule of naturalization; and to repeal the act heretofore passed on that subject; ch. 54, 1 Stat. 566) repealed and replaced the Naturalization Act of 1795 to extend the duration of residence required for aliens to become citizens of the United States from five years to fourteen years.
2. The Alien Act (officially An Act Concerning Aliens; ch. 58, 1 Stat. 570) authorized the president to deport any resident alien considered "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States." It was activated June 25, 1798, with a two year expiration date.
3. The Alien Enemies Act (officially An Act Respecting Alien Enemies; ch. 66, 1 Stat. 577) authorized the president to apprehend and deport resident aliens if their home countries were at war with the United States of America. Enacted July 6, 1798, and providing no sunset provision, the act remains intact today as 50 U.S.C. §§ 21–24. At the time, war was considered likely between the U.S. and France.
4. The Sedition Act (officially An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States; ch. 74, 1 Stat. 596) made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials. It was enacted July 14, 1798, with an expiration date of March 3, 1801 (the day before Adams' presidential term was to end). |
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| 1765 (short title Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III, c. 12) was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp.[1][2] These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money.[3] The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years' War. The British government felt that the colonies were the primary beneficiaries of this military presence, and should pay at least a portion of the expense. |
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