Understanding historical context is an important part of genealogical research. Learning what events our ancestors lived through and the struggles they may have faced helps give us insight into their lives and the strength of their spirit - all the important, colorful details of their story that are so much more valuable than the facts about the date they were born or died. Not only can we relate to our ancestors more personally, but the past becomes more real to us as we learn about our relatives that experienced it.
Think about when and where your ancestors lived, and what events they lived through. How might they or their family have been affected? Did they take part or witness these historical events? Could these events have influenced some of their decisions, such as moving their family west to claim land?
You can also use this timeline to help you figure out what records or sources might be available for your ancestors, or what kinds of things you should be researching.
I also suggest looking into more localized historical events, through newspaper records of the time or town history collections. You may be able to find stories directly about your ancestors, or about smaller events only those communities faced. You will also be able to see how those in the smaller communities and towns reacted to historical events both big and small.
The below timeline is by no means comprehensive and is meant only as a rough illustration to guide you for further independent study.
Our Brief Timeline of United States History
Water for Camp painting by Charles M. Russell, photo from wikipedia.org, public domain.
16th Century (Pre-Colonial, Before 1600)
1400’s - Historic Native American tribes (Apache, Cherokee, Navajo, Sioux and others) inhabit the land
1492 - Columbus comes to America
1513 - Ponce de Leon lands in Florida
1565 - St. Augustine in Florida the first permanent settlement in the land
1587 - Virginia Dare first English child in the New World is born in Roanoke
17th Century (Colonial America Founded)
1607 - Colony of Jamestown founded
1617 - 1619 - Smallpox wipes out large Native American populations
1619 - Slave trade begins
The Mayflower Compact, 1620 painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, from Wikimedia.org, public domain
1620 - Pilgrims arrive in the Mayflower
1628 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony founded
1636 - Harvard College founded as first university in US
1644 - English takeover New Amsterdam from the Dutch, rename it New York
1656 - Quakers arrive in New England
1675 - 1676 - King Philip’s War
1692 - Salem Witch Trials
18th Century (French & Indian Wars, Revolutionary War)
1752 - Ben Franklin flies a kite in a thunderstorm
1754 - 1763 French and Indian Wars between Great Britain and France, each siding with various Native American tribes
1763 - Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian wars
1765 - The Stamp Act of 1765 helps start the Revolution
The Bloody Massacre, copper engraving by Paul Revere, from Wikimedia.org, public domain.
1770 - The Boston Massacre
1773 - The Boston Tea Party
1776 - Declaration of Independence signed
1789 - US Constitution goes into effect, George Washington elected first president
1790 - First U.S. Federal Census, would continue every decade; Rhode Island becomes the 13th state
1791 - The Bill of Rights was ratified
1793 - Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, demand for slavery increases
1794 - Whiskey Rebellion
1796 - Tennessee becomes the 16th state
1798 - Congress passes the Alien and Sedition Acts
Breaking up Camp at Sunrise painting by Alfred Jacob Miller, from Wikipedia.org, public domain.
19th Century (Westward Expansion, War of 1812, Trail of Tears)
1801 - Thomas Jefferson elected the third president of the U.S.
1803 - Territory of Louisiana purchased from France
1804 - Aaron Burr shoots Alexander Hamilton in duel
1804 - Lewis & Clark begin their journey
1812 -1814 - War of 1812
1815 - Battle of New Orleans
1816 - First Continental map of the United States
1819 - Spain ceded Florida to US
1820 - Maine created as a state
1815 - 1860 westward expansion, Oregon Trail in use
(slavery prominent in US)
1836 - The Battle of the Alamo in Texas
1838 - Cherokee Trail of Tears march
1846 - 1848 - Mexican War
1847 - Potato Famine in Ireland spurs Irish immigration to US
1848 - Wisconsin becomes a state
1849 - Gold rush
19th Century, continued… (Civil War & Reconstruction, Immigration, Inventions)
1851 - New York Times newspaper begins (as New-York Daily Times)
1855 - New York state opens Castle Garden immigration center
1859 - Modern oil industry begins in Pennsylvania
1860 - Abraham Lincoln elected the 16th president
1861 - The Battle of Bull Run, first battle of the Civil War
1861 - Southern States secede
1862 - Homestead Act for government land
First at Vicksburg, unknown artist. From Wikimedia.org, public domain.
(1861 - 1865 - Civil War)
1863 - Battle of Gettysburg
1863 - Emancipation proclamation;
1865 - Thirteenth amendment abolishes slavery
1865-1877 - Reconstruction
1869 - Transcontinental railroad completed
Brooklyn Bridge from the collection of the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands from Wikimedia.org, public domain.
1870 - Construction starts on the Brooklyn Bridge, January 1870 (would open in 1883)
1871 - The Great Chicago Fire begins
1876 -Alexander graham bell invents the telephone. View his laboratory notebook
1876 - Battle of the Little Bighorn
1880 - Thomas Edison files a patent for his lamp
1881 - Clara Barton invents the American Red Cross
1882 - Edison starts supplying electricity to the public; Chinese Exclusion Act stopped Chinese immigration
1886 - Haymarket Riot, Statue of Liberty erected and dedicated
1886 - Coca Cola invented, Sears Company born
1891 - Basketball invented
1892 - Ellis Island opens (the first federal immigration center)
1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case allows for racial segregation
1898 - Spanish-American War; we acquire Puerto Rico and Guam;
San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, by Arnold Genthe, from Wikimedia.org, public domain
20th Century (Disasters, Women’s Rights, World Wars)
1900 - Galveston hurricane kills thousands
1903 - Wright brothers flight, Ford Motor Company starts, first World Series of baseball
1906 - San Francisco Earthquake
1907 - William Taft elected the 27th president, coal mine explosion in West Virginia, record number of 1.3 million immigrants in one year
1910 - Boys Scouts of America invented
1912 - The Titanic sinks, Girl Scouts started
Suffrage Parade, by National Photo Company. From Wikimedia.org, public domain.
1913 - Women’s Suffrage parade in D.C.
1914 - Panama canal finished
1917 - Prohibition instituted with the 18th amendment; US enters World War I
1918 / 1919 - Spanish Flu hits the US
1920 - Women get right to vote with 19th amendment, NFL starts
1924 - Indigenous Native Americans given right to citizenship
1926 - NBC founded as first major TV broadcast network
1927 - Charles Lindbergh travels across the Atlantic
1928 - Mickey Mouse created, Steamboat Willie premieres
1929 - Stock market crash, Great Depression begins
1934 - Dust Bowl in the midwest
1935 - FDR establishes Works Projects Administration (WPA), social security created
Amelia Earhart, photographer unknown, from flickr user NASA on The Commons, public domain
1937 - Amelia Earhart vanishes; Hindenburg zeppelin blows up
1939 - Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs first full-length animated movie
1941 - Pearl Harbor bombed, US enters World War II
1943 - Chinese immigrants finally allowed to become U.S. citizens
Into the Jaws of Death by Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert F. Sargent, National Archives and Records Administration, from Wikipedia.org, public domain
1944 - Invasion of Normandy “D-Day”
1945 - US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1947 - Start of Cold War with Soviet Union
20th Century, continued… (Civil Rights, Cold War)
1950 - 1953 - Korean War
1952 - Microwave oven invented
1954 - Elvis Presley begins his career
1954 - Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist hearings
1954 - Racial segregation in schools declared unconstitutional with Brown v. Board of Education
1955 - Rosa Parks refuses to give up bus seat
1958 - Lego blocks created, NASA created
1959 - Alaska becomes the 49th state, and Hawaii becomes the 50th
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis; Walmart created
Martin Luther King Jr., photograph from flickr user National Park Service, CC by 2.0 some rights reserved.
1963 - Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech
1963 - JFK assassinated
1964 - The Beatles US Tour
1965 - First US troops arrive in Vietnam; The Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) ends racist immigrant quota systems
1967 - The first Super Bowl
1968 - Martin Luther King assassinated
“Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon” by NASA. From Wikimedia.org, public domain.
1969 - First moon landing, Neil Armstrong walks on the moon
1969 - Woodstock concert
1973 - Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizes first trimester abortion
1974 - President Nixon resigns after Watergate
1977 - First Star Wars movie
1978 - Apple Computer created
1980 - Mt St. Helens erupted
1981 - HIV / Aids hits US
1983 - Mario Bros created
1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
1989 - Exxon Valdez largest oil spill in US history
1991 - Persian Gulf War, US leads “Desert Storm”; Cold War officially ends, World Wide Web debuts
1992 - Los Angeles riots, Hurricane Andrew, Bill Clinton elected the 42nd president
1995 - Oklahoma bombing; O.J. Simpson aquitted of murder
1996 - Google created
1999 - Columbine school shooting
The World Trade Center on 9-11, Library of Congress. From Wikimedia.org, public domain
21st Century (Terrorism, School Shootings, Social Media)
2001 - September 11 terrorist attacks
2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia explosion
2003 - Iraq War
2005 - Hurricane Katrina hits the southeast US
2005 - YouTube created
2007 - Virginia Tech school shooting
2007 - Facebook created
2008 - financial bail-outs and recession
“Barack Obama sworn in as 44th President of United States…” Wikimedia, public domain.
2008 - Barack Obama becomes first Black president
2009 - H1N1 virus; Michael Jackson dies
2010 - Instagram created,
2011 - Occupy Wall Street Movement
2012 - Colorado movie theatre shooting; Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting; Hurricane Sandy
2013 - Boston Marathon bombing; Edward Snowden leaks classified documents from the NSA; Black Lives Matter political movement
2015 - Same-sex marriage legalized
2016 - Trump elected; Pulse nightclub shooting; Chicago Cubs win World Series; Simone Biles wins big at the Olympics
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Women’s March in Seattle, From Wikimedia.org, public domain.
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2017 - Las Vegas mass shooting; the #MeToo movement begins; Hurricane Maria hits Puerto Rico
2018 - Parkland school shooting
2019 - US women’s soccer wins the World Cup; mass shooting in a Texas Walmart; Jeffrey Epstein found dead; Trump impeached
2020 - Coronavirus stops society and kills over 174k Americans; #BlackLivesMatter movement and protests of police brutality; Anti-racism movement
Additional References & Sources:
BBC News. “United States profile - Timeline”, 25 March 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-16759233 Accessed May 2020.
Library of Congress. “United States History” World Digital Library, https://www.wdl.org/en/sets/us-history/timeline/ Accessed May 2020.
Pruitt, Sarah. “14 Major Events of the 2010’s”, History.com. Updated 5 Feb 2020, Original 9 Dec 2019. https://www.history.com/news/2010s-decade-major-events Accessed May 2020.
Wikipedia. “Timelines of United States history by period”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Timelines_of_United_States_history_by_period Accessed May 2020.