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ca 1000 AD:
• L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland is established by the Vikings. It is the only discovered archeological site pertaining to Viking precense in the New World and was discovered in 1960
1483
• Martin Luther is Born

1491
• Ferdinand and Isabella succeed in expulsing the Moors from their last foothold in Granada signifying the demise of Islam in Spain.  They set up residence in  their newly won and magnifiscent fortress-palace the Alhambra in Granada
1492
• Christopher Columbus  petition Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra and as a result  sets off on his first famous voyage , finding the Carribean Isles and thus the New World. In his discoveries  he  advances the Age of Eploration
1497
• John Cabot  sees the North American Mainland before the Spanish,  having offered to do for England's Henry VII what Columbus had done for  Ferdinand and Isabella.  [England, a second rate power at the time, won a coup when Henry VII's son Henry VIII was contracted to Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter Catharine of Aragon. Spain was the premier European power at the time of the contract]
1502
• Columbus makes his fourth and final voyage to the New World (Honduras and Panama)
1509
• John Calvin is Born
• Beginnings of slave trade to New World involving areas south of the present United States. The Portuguese slave traders were the first to involve slaves in the africa / europe / new world  "trade  triangle" . The Spanish soon followed.

1513
• Balboa finds the Pacific Ocean
• Ponce de Leon finds Florida
1515
• " Bartolomé de las Casas , Roman Catholic Priest of Chiapas in Mexico, suggested to the Spanish Crown ìthe employment of a limited number of Negro slaves instead of Indiansîin the Caribbean. By 1516, ìthe traffic in slaves was regulated by an order permitting the  transport of 4,000 Negroes annually from Africa for sale (and slavery) in the New Worldî  " ¹⁰
1519
• Cortes  enters Tenochtitlan, capital of Mexico, [on site of present Mexico City]  and Cortes is received by the Aztec ruler, Montezuma. He brought with him  Arabian horses from Spain. These are the first horses in the new world. The famous Chincoteque ponies are felt the wild descendants of Spanish horses escaped from a sinking Spanish galleon in  the Chesapeake region near later  Spanish Florida
1520
Smallpox epidemic raged through Vera Cruz, Mexico. The 16th century smallpox epidemic in Mexico and Central America killed about half of the Aztecs
1521
• Cortes assumes control of Mexico after destruction of Aztec state
• Magellan assumes control of Mexico after destruction of Aztec state
1522
First slave revolt in New World occurs in Hispaniola [Island holding both today's  Domincan Republic and Haiti]
1524
• Giovanni da Verrazano finds New York Bay and the Hudson River. The expanse of the harbor , its deep waters accomodating large vessels, the depth of the Hudson emptrying into it allowing river trade up and down for tremendous miles and Manhattan Island's natural protection deep within the bay distant from  the small narrows providing water access and now with a bridge named for this discover provided the circumstances that led to its later success.
1525
• The first Anabaptists are known to exist in Germany and Switzerland [Pacifist and austere, the anabaptists believed that baptism should occur at the age of cognizance, not at birth. This concept, heretical to Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinists alike, is in large part the reason for their persecution. They suffer for centuries as a result of their faith. Although the type of punishment for faith varied with time and locale, in the worst case scenarios mennonites and other anabaptists were forced to leave their homes, cast out from towns, imprisoned for their religion,  tortured, burnt alive, and, in the better case scenarios  were not allowed to bury their dead with religious ceremony, were not allowed to gather in groups to worship without fear of imprisonment, while their marriages were not recognized.
1530
• Portuguese colonize Brasil
1535
• Cartier's second voyage to new World: St. Lawrence River,Quebec, Montreal
1538
• Spain annexes Cuba
• Hernando de Soto explores Florida
• The name "America" used for the first time. It is named for Amerigo Vespucci
1541
• Coronado leads expedition from New Mexico across Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern Kansas
• De Soto finds the Mississippi River
1552
• Bartolome de Las Casas publishes his account of the oppression of the South American Indians
1550s
• Lutherans  reach state sanctioned status in Germany with the signing of the Treaty of Augsberg  (granting the individual German City-States the right to choose their own  religion- (note that Luther lived 1483-1546) , but Calvinists were not (Calvin lived 1509-1564) ."choosing their own religion" only meant that  a mortal Lord could choose his religion, as long as it was Catholic or Lutheran, and that his populace was expected to follow their MORTAL Lord's decision as to the manner of  worship of the Lord above. It would be nearly 100 years before the Calvinists also receive State Sanctioned status,also by treaty. Nearly 100 years later The Peace of Westphalia ending the 30 Years War assured Calvinists a similar position of state sanction in Germany, sharing that status with the Catholics and the Lutherans. No other protestants wereincluded.
1562
• Jean Ribault begins the French quest for a colony in the southern now US landing near the St. Johns River (Florida) and establishing a colony called Chalesfort [on present-day Parris Island, South Carolina]. On return to Europe the colony failed and was abandoned.
1564
• Rene de Goulaine de Laudonniere founded settlement on the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville. A Year later those colonists were expelled by a Spanish fleet led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés
• Creation of Spanish Florida
• Spanish annexation of the Carolina Outer Banks
1565
• Pedro Menéndez de Avilés  founded St. Augustine, Florida, and this became the first permanent European settlement in North America, it being continuously populated since its founding.
• The Spanish introduce slavery in North America taking slaves to St Augustine¹²

1566-67
• Two million Indians die in South America of typhoid fever, an illness related to  water
1570
• The Jesuit Mission on Chesapeake Bay
1572
• A politically formed marriage between Protestand Henry of Navarre [in then unanticipated succesion  later  becoming King Henry IV of France] and  Catholic Princess Margaret ]de Valois , occasions the St Bartholomew's massacre  in France, the result of the Queen mother Catherine de Medici's jealousy of the Protestant Coligny's influence on her son [and Margaret's brother] the Prince of France.The new groom himself was very nearly killed, spared only after legnthy discourse by the  offending parties, while many more Protestants of France suffered that fate, there being large numbers of them present for the marriage of their prince.    The  St Bartholomewís Day Massacre caused the death ofî 3,000 Huguenots in Paris. The fervor spread through France  and lasted until October despite royal orders for it to stop. By the end,   70,000  Huguenots were murdered in France. Once over, it led to the resumption of Civil War. This inquietude resultant of the Massacre of St Bartholomew  led to Huegenot emmigration to neighboring Germany from which many french Huguenots later left for the American colonies.
1573
• Francis Drake sees Pacific Ocean for the first time
1582
• First English colony in Newfoundland started
1585-1589
• Two attempts to establish a colony on Roanoke Island are organized by Sir Walter Raleigh. The second disappears without a trace save "CROATAN" written on a tree. Its meaning and the settlers fater remain a mystery.
 
1576-1583
• German anti anabaptist activity worsens after a period of improvement
• "the Lutheran Elector Louis VI, 1576-83, who also took sharp measures against the Calvinists. ... began to expel the Anabaptists [dunkers, amish, mennonites, etc]  from the country [Germany] , confiscate their goods to be kept under curators. If an Anabaptist let himself be persuaded to accept the state church, he received his property back after an examination by the superintendent. The superintendents and the pastors were reminded by an "electoral instruction" of Aug. 1, 1579, "to refute Anabaptist errors clearly from the pulpit frequently and to explain thoroughly the practice and benefits of the sacraments." Obstinate Anabaptists were to be imprisoned in the tower on bread and water, but were to be instructed both within the prison and outside several times, "that they may be moved to real conversion." In cases of continued persistence they were to be expelled from the country; this also happened to the Calvinists, one of whom was called almost an Anabaptist." ¹¹Our Barr , Kundig, and Herr lines were devout Mennonites.  and thus anabaptists, early escaping to Penn's territories


1579

Protestant Henry of Navarre Bourbon is crowned Henry IV of France [17 years following the St Bartholomew's massacre  occasioned on his marriage] and converts to Catholicism. His conversion was made in an attempt to unite divided France, for he knew he would never capture the faith of the largely Catholic (90%)  population. On acceding he  abandoned his own Protestant practice, feeling the peace of his country might be found with a tolerant Catholic king [See 1598 when he issues the Edict of Nantes protecting the French Huguenots]
1583
• Newfoundland English colonizer Humphrey Gilbert leads a group of settlers to Newfoundland, which  he claims for Queen Elizabeth. Humphrey dies on the return voyage, and the settlers left behind disappear.
1588
• First Interactions and Mutual Impressions between English Settlers and Indians of North Carolina Coast is published


1598

Henry de Navarre, now Henry IV King of France and converted to Catholocism,  issues the Edict of Nantes which defined the rights of the French Protestants (AKA Huguenots AKA French Calvinists). At the time of itís signing the King granted the protestant French the right to worship in public, hold public office, assemble, enter universities and administer their towns. The edict both gave and denied the protestant French  rights, and is considered conciliatory to the Catholics although   it remains a seriously important document regarding religious freedom and one often cited for its political and diplomatic genius. In regards to our American ancestors, the most important effect of the Edict of Nantes is its revocation 87 years later (1685 ) by Louise XIV. [See year  1685]
1600
• English East India Company founded.
• Population in Europe: France 16 million; England and Ireland 5  million
1604
•  French attempt colonization colonization attempts in Acadia
1605
• Santa Fe, New Mexico founded by the Spanish
1606
• James I issues a charter to the Virginia Company for tract of land along the mid-Atlantic coast in April and on Dec 20 Admiral Christopher Newport leaves London with the Godspeed, Discovery,and Susan Constant bound for Virginia.
1607
• The Plymouth Company established a colony on the Kennebec River, in Maine in 1607. The colony failed.
• May 13: Arrival to Va of the English aboard the Godspeed, Discovery and Susan Contant . 104 male settlers arrive at site they nameJames Cittie and establish the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
• May 26: Paspahegh Indians [part of the Powhatan Confederacy]attack the colonists,killing two,  wounding ten. [Paspahegh lands pertained to now Charles City and James City Counties. ]
• December 10: Capt. John Smith leads expedition up the Chickahominy in search of food and is captured. [The Chickahominy River is named for the region pertaining to this tribe of the Powhatan confederacy]
• December 29: John Smith is brought before Powhatan; Smith believes that Pocahontas,Powhatan's daughter, saves his life.


1608

• CHAMPLAIN founds QUEBEC, adding it  to the list of French settlements in the north.
• Powhatan delivers his address to John Smith
• January 1: Smith returns to James Fort to find only 38 of the original 104 settlers remain.
• September (?): The persons of the second supply  [ 70 new immigrants] arrives on the Mary and Margaret,  including an Elizabethan bed for Powhatan and a five-piece barge to explore the Richmond Falls
• November: . Jamestown's first wedding occurs involving the maid to Mrs Forrest: Anne Burras. who marries John Laydon, a carpenter. Both Mrs Forrest and Anne Burras arrived in the second supply in Sept. They are felt  the first English women of Jamestown


1609

• Henry Hudson, employed by the Dutch East India Company, sails up the Hudson River in search of a passage to the Indies.
• The "third supply" of nine ships and 500 immigrants leave England bound for Virginia, and in August  Seven vessels of the third supply [second link] arrive in James Cittie with 200-300 passengers. The flagship Sea Venture  had been nearly destroyed by storm and its 150 persons were in uninhabited Bermuda.
• September: Captain John Smith is wounded in a gunpowder explosion and forced to return to England.  President Ratcliffe rows up the Pamunkey to bargain with Powhatan for desperately needed food; he is captured by Indian women and tortured to death.
• September-May 1610: The Jamestown inhabitants are devastated by hunger. The Starving Time reduces the population to 60 gaunt survivors from the previous fall's population of 500-600. John Smith describes The Starving Time
1610
• Henry Hudson explores Hudson Bay
• May 23: Jamestown. 100 new settlers arrive in two ships, Deliverance and Patience.[forged from the former Sea Venture]
• May 24: Lieutenant Governor Sir Thomas Gates , arrived just the day before, proclaims martial law.
• June 8: Lord De La Warr arrives in the nick of time and prevents Gates and its "250 (?) settlers"  ² from returning to England and abandoning the colony. [the question mark is provided by Virtual Jamestown in their own  timeline regarding  this entry]


1611/12

• John Rolfe creates a hybrid tobacco in effort for cash crop resultant of his unexpected stay in the Caribbean with the Sea Venture
• Lord De La Warr and the Council issue the legal  code (1612) which governs the Jamestown colony until 1619. [These laws are remarkable for their offenses and punishments and include pain of death for [among many other things] lying, stealing flowers from a garden. or  speaking impiously or maliciously against " the holy and blessed Trinitie, or any of the three persons". They appear in "Lawes Divine, Morall and Martial"
1613
• June 4: Captain Argall captures Pocahontas and brings her to Jamestown as a hostage.
• Powhatan is married to John Rolfe, ending the First Anglo Powhatan War and creating a "first family" of Virginia.
• Shakespeare writes his final play "the Tempest", felt to be based on the experience  of flagship Sea Venture of the third supply bound for Virginia in 1609 and which had been shipwrecked on Bermuda.


1614

• The Dutch establish trading posts on Manhattan and at Fort Orange [Albany] up the Hudson. They call their territorial possesions New Netherland.
• The first crop  of Virginia Tobacco is shipped to England

The First Anglo Powhatan War Begins a result of George Percy's actions on August 9, 1610 when Percy and seventy men
went to the capital town of Paspahegh where the English killed or  injured fifity or more people and captured a wife of Wowinchopunch,the weroance, and her children.


1617

• The Dutch make their first settlement in New Jersey at Bergen.
1618-23
• The "Great Migration" increases Jamestown's  population from 400 to 4,500 but most die from disease, starvation, and Indian attack. Within these numbers are Dr John Woodson and his wife Sarah, who arrived in 1619, he was a surgeon.


1618

• 30 Years War in Europe Begins. It pits Catholics against Protestants and devastates Europe, particularly Germany.
• [At the time of the 30 Years War  about half of Germanyís states were Protestant and half Catholic, with Lutheranism the only state recognized Protestant faith, having recieved sanction in the 1550s with the Signing of the Treaty of Augsburg.
• [The unpheaval caused by this and subsequent wars in this  "century of war" will yield the cause of emmigration for most of our Palatine forebears found arriving and populating Pennsylvania in the early  18th century. Germany was a battle field throughout most of the 17th century.]


1619

• Virginia settlers procure a share in their government through establishment of the FIRST REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY IN AMERICA, called The House of Burgesses
• The General Assembly meets in the choir of the Jamestown church; its first lawrequires tobacco to be sold for at least threeshillings per pound.
• Our First Ancestors arrive to America in the form of Dr and Mrs John Woodson, He was a Surgeon bound for the growing colony and emmigrating from England. His descendancy cascades into our Pleasants and  Logan Lines [Howard relevant] .
• 90 Young Women are brought  to Jamestown and bartered for Tobacco; They are meant to serve as wives to the former tenants.The VirginiaCompany prices them at "one hundredth and fiftie[pounds] of the best leafe Tobacco"
• A cargo of twenty African slaves arrives on a Dutch ship at Jamestown. The Dutch privateer had taken the slaves from a Spanish ship. ¹These are often called the first black  Americans.  Although it appears that all record of the ship is lost, and the name of the Captain as well, Virtual Jamestown informs in their time line entry for this year " Twenty blacks are purchased from a passing Portuguese slave ship bound fromLuanda, Angola, to Vera Cruz." ²Virtual Jamestown also  informs that theymay not havebeen the first, since some 32 Africans were noted five months earlier in a Virginia census of 1619. ² John Rolfe wrote to England informing of the exchange of " twenty some odd"  blacks for food to a Dutch ship that stopped in Jamestown to procure victuals.
• August: Twenty blacks are purchased from a passing Portuguese slave ship bound fromLuanda, Angola, to Vera Cruz.
1620
• The Mayflower sails from Holland and England to America (Plymouth)The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Cape Cod November 11 and formed the FIRST SETTLEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND AT PLYMOUTH (December 22). The FIRST REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA was established at Plymouth. The Pilgrims, before landing, signed an agreement called "The Mayflower Compact." By this compact they established themselves into a body politic, agreeing to be governed by the will of the majority. This is evidence that the Pilgrims did not intend to be temporary residents in the new world.


1622

• Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason obtained a grant of land between the Merrimac and Kennebec Rivers from the Plymouth Company, and made a settlement at Saco, Maine.
• March 22: The Second Anglo Powhatan War begins when an Indian attack was made on Jamestown in which our Jamestown Forebears were among the survivors. The Powhatan Indian Attack against settlements immediately outside Jamestown caused the loss of 347men, women, and children. , setting off a war that lasted a decade.A Pamunkey Indian, Chanco, [christianized and with a brother who took part in the attack who did not know of Chanco's actions]  indirectly warns Governor Wyatt and Jamestown mounts a successful defense. "Charles City, the Ironworks, CollegeLand, and Martin's Hundred are all abandoned after the massacre because many are concerned about the vulnerability of isolatedsettlements. " ⁷
• August. The English attack the Powhatan Indians and put a price on the head of their chief, Opechancanough. Conflicts continuefor the next ten years except for one short period of peace.
• The colony has a smaller-than-usual harvest and  is  ironicallyforced to trade with the Indians for corn and supplies but even though taking food by trade or force many went hungry.. There isanother"starving time" . The mortality rate during the winter of 1622-23 climbed due to malnutrition and disease - over four hundred settlers died.
• December 20: The Abigail arrives with no food and infection; starvation further reduces the colony. The epidemic kills twice as many people as died in the massacre, and the colony's population is reduced to about 500; the colonists hold out hope for the arrival of the Seaflower.
1623
• March 18: In Bermuda, the Seaflower is blown updue to the negligence of the Captain's son.
• April. Jamestown colonists goon a trading expedition to obtain food from the Powhatan confederation Indians. Negotiationsbreak down. About twenty colonists are killed and others taken captive.
• May: Captain William Tucker concludes peacenegotiations with a Powhatan village by proposinga toast with a drink laced with poison prepared by Dr. John Potts; 200 Powhatans die instantly andanother 50 are slaughtered.
• September: William Strachey makes the lastknown reference to James Cittie; surveyor William Clayborne lays out the streets of New Towne, a suburb outside the old James Fort. The fort seems to have existed into themiddle of the 1620s, but as Jamestown grew into a "New Town" to the east, written references to the original fortdisappear.
• The Dutch found their settlement of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island
• The Dutch erected Fort Nassau on the Delaware River.
• John Mason established the first settlement in New Hampshire on the Piscataqua River.
• In 1623 , in a muster meant to assess the loss of the 1622 massacre,  6 persons unnamed and identified as "Neggars" are found in the muster list of Jamestown and residing in the home of Dr John Woodson. They werepart of the twenty and some odd black persons bartered for food by a passing Dutch ship in 1620.
1624
• May. Virginia becomes a royal province due to loss of the Royal Charter from mismanagement of the colony by the Va Company

"Since 1606, approximately seventy-three hundred emigrants have sailed for the colony, and 6,040 have died either en route or after arrival. However, the Privy Council argues that that the colony has had a net increase of only 275 people since its founding. The colony suffers from chronic food shortages and seems unable to get a subsistence from its own efforts. The greatest death rate has occurred between 1621 and 1623, during the period of the Great Migration. The causes of the colony's low condition are numerous: over-cultivation of tobacco; conflicts with the Powhatans, caused or aggravated by the colonists' dependence on them for food; poorly coordinated arrivals of colonists and supplies; and an unhealthy location and bad water supply that causes chronic ill health and high death rates. The Company is bankrupt and divided between factions led by Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir Thomas Smith. In sum, the problems are complex and various, and the Company, riven by factional fighting, is unable to resolve them. Despite the loss of its charter, the Company lingers on until 1630." ⁷
.
1626    Peter Minuit, director-general of New Netherland, purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24.

1627    The Swedes settled in Delaware

1628

• The permanent settlement of Massachusetts Bay Colony, in New England, began by the settlement of SALEM under JOHN ENDICOTT.


1630

• BOSTON WAS FOUNDED Puritan John Winthrop
• The first general court in New England met there October 19
• Elizabeth Ferris is born in the 1630s in Prince George Co., Va
1632
• Charter issued for the colony of Maryland, named for Queen Henrietta Maria
• Driven by "the sacred duty of finding a refuge for his Roman Catholic brethren," George Calvert (1580-1632) obtained a charter from Charles I in 1632 for the territory between Pennsylvania and Virginia. This Maryland charter offered no guidelineson religion, although it was assumed that Catholics would not be molested in the new colony. In 1634 two ships, the  Ark and the Dove, brought the first settlers to Maryland. Aboard were approximately two hundred people


1634

• Lord Baltimore sent out Leonard Calvert who makes the first permanent settlement in Maryland at ST. MARY'S


1635

• Colonization of Connecticut begins as John Winthrop led his English settlers into Connecticut.
• The first white settler in Rhode Island builds a home there

 

1636

• Puritans emigrated from Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River. There were various causes for this emigration from Massachusetts Bay: 1. The aristocratic government of Massachusetts Bay was much disliked; 2. There was not enough available fertile land; 3. There was need for frontier posts against the Dutch and Indians; 4. Ambitious leaders desired an opportunity for their abilities. The Connecticut towns three years later drew up the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. By 1653 there were twelve towns in Connecticut.
• Harvard College was founded.
• Roger Williams establishes Providence and proclaims complete religious freedom.


1638

• A Swedish settlement was made near Wilmington, on the Delaware when Captain Peter

                  Minuit purchases land and the era of New Sweden in the New World begins.
• Ann Hutchinson sets up community in Rhode Island.   Mrs. Ann Hutchinson opposed the religious government of Massachusetts Bay and held that every person could make his peace with God without the intervention of an established Church. The Puritans, therefore, expelled her from the colony.
• Two conservative Puritans, Eaton and Davenport, settle New Haven .  It was a strict "Bible Commonwealth."
• Susannah BATES is born  in Middletown, Bruton Parish, York Co. VA
• Jane LARCOME is born in Curles, Henrico County, Virginia
• Evidence of First Slave Markets in America²
• The public sale of slaves in Jamestown begins this year⁷


1639

• The first printing press is  set up at Harvard College. Stephen Daye was the printer, and THE FIRST AMERICAN BOOK was "The Bay Psalm Book."
•  Charles I allows the Colonists to call their general assembly allowing partial self rule  in Virginia
1642
• Montreal Quebec founded
• English Civil War Begins as a result of the Reformation and its counter effects


1644

• April 18: The Third Anglo Powhatan War begins when Chief Opechancanough leads Indians in an attack, killing nearly 500 colonists. Dr John Woodson is one of them.
• October: Opechancanough is captured and carried by stretcher to Jamestown. He is found shot , with various records stating it was  in the back, while in prison, on the streets of Jamestown,  by colonists, and by the sentry posted to gaurd him.


1646

• English Civil War ends with Puritan Victory


1648

• Goerge Fox founds the Society of Friends [Quakers]
• [The 30 years war ends.   Basically in the signing of the treaty of the Treaty of Westphalia , the Treaty of Augsburg (almost 100 years earlier) was reaffirmed, and the only real change for our German forebears was that Calvinism was recognized.   What it meant to be recognized as a state sanctioned church is that a Lord of the city states could practise his preferred religion without fear of sanction against him, as long as it was a State sanctioned alternative to Catholicism, and this priveledge extended to his populace. Those not practising the religion of the Lord often suffered as a result no matter what his religion.  Although initially the only alternative to Catholicism that enjoyed state sanction was Lutheranism, followed by a third state sanctioned religion with   Calvinism nearly 100 years later, other Protestant doctrines were practised and the state sanctioning of the three religions mentioned caused all three to oppress the newer sects, just as the Lutherans joined strenuously with the Catholics in trying to erradicate Calvanism. These and constant warfare were the conditions leading to the emmigration of our forebears from the Palatinate. ]
• " The real losers in the war were the German people. Over 300,000 had been killed in battle. Millions of civilians had died of malnutrition and disease, and wandering, undisciplined troops had robbed, burned, and looted almost at will. Most authorities believe that the population of the Empire dropped from about 21,000,000 to 13,500,000 between 1618 and 1648. Even if they exaggerate, the Thirty Years War remains one of the most terrible in history." ⁴ Starving peasants  resorted to cannibalism. It is estimated that half the population died.


1649

• The Iroquois destroy the Hurons and their Jesuit Mission
• Charles I is beheaded ; Oliver Cromwell comes to power
•  "Catholics in the Maryland Assembly passed an act stipulating that no Trinitarian Christian "shall from henceforth be any waies troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for, or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this Province." "⁶


1651

• The first Indian Reservation is created near Richmond, Virginia
1652
• The Quaker Society of Friends formed around a charismatic leader George Fox. They took puritan ideals steps further.
1653
• The settlement of ALBEMARLE, North Carolina, was made by Virginia pioneers.
• John FLEMING first appears in the Records of the Land Office in Richmond VA


1654
"For some decades Jews had flourished in Dutch-held areas of Brazil, but a Portuguese conquest of the area in 1654 confronted them with the prospect of the introduction of the Inquisition, which had already burned a Brazilian Jew at the stake in 1647. A shipload of twenty-three Jewish refugees from Dutch Brazil arrived in New Amsterdam (soon to become New York) in 1654. By the next year, this small community had established religious services in the city"⁶

1655

• Stuyvesant conquered New Sweden with its center on the Delaware River.
• Holland was given a free hand after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which terminated the "THIRTY-YEARS' WAR" in Europe. Sweden definitely abandoned American colonization to England and Holland after her defeat.
1657
• Susannah TARLETON is born in  New Kent, Va [St. Peter's Parrish]
1658
• By 1658 Jews had arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, also seeking religious liberty.⁶


1660

• Charles REED isborn about 1660 in Burlington NJ. Father said to be Thomas of that place.
• The monarchy is restored in England following Oliver Cromwell's death in 1558. Charles II accedes to the thrown
1661
•  Virginia institutionalizes slavery with a law that makes the status of the mother determine slave or free status of the child
• 1662
• Jamestowns mandatory port of entry status for entry to Virginia is ended
1664
• The British Annex New Netherlands and rename New Amsterdam New York


1665

• John Pleasants emigrates to Va from England ca 1665 ; settled Henrico County
1666
• Hostilities in Scotland against the Presbyterians heightens. The McCurdy brothers, including PethericìOf The Cairnî leave their native Bute bound for Ireland in an open boat and blinding Snowstorm.  He settles in Antrim.


1669

• South C arolina founded


1670

• CHARLESTON, South Carolina,  settled


1671

• The Mennonites in the Palatinate were increased in number in 1671-72 when persecution in Switzerland reached its climax...On Nov. 2, 1671, Jakob Everling, the preacher of the Obersulzen congregation, reported that 200 persons had come to the Palatinate, some of whom were cripples, old people of 70-90 years, and families of eight to ten children. They arrived destitute with their bundles on their backs and their children in their arms.]
Mennonite Encyclopedia

1672

• Marquette, Frenchman, explores north of Missouri near present day Chicago


1673

• Marquette and Joliet reach headwaters of Mississippi and explore Arkansas


1676

• Bacons Rebellion in Virginia in which Nathaniel Bacon openly defied Governor Berkeley in waging war against the Indians, and he burns Jamestown to the ground before dying of dysentery on October 26.


1678

• La Salle explores the Great Lakes


1680

• Dorothy CARY is born in Virginia
• The French colonial empire, reaching from Quebec to the mouth of the  Mississippi River is organized
• By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been  imprisoned in England, and 243 had died oftorture and mistreatment in the King's jails. Thisreign of terror impelled Friends to seek refuge inNew Jersey in the 1670s, where they soon became well entrenched.⁶


1681

• WILLIAM PENN secured a charter and a grant of land from Charles II, which included Delaware and Pennsylvania.
• William Penn, a religious nonconformist espousing the cause of the Society of Friends (Quakers) comes to establish Pennsylvania, on a large land grant he received the year before from Charles II. One third of the 100 Quakers die of smallpox during the two-month journey. Penn founds Philadelphia. German Mennonites quickly migrate to Pennsylvania, settling near Philadelphia and spreading into the Lehigh and Cumberland valleys.
1681-1686
• Amy CHILD Alone Buys 500 acres from Penn, came to  America between 1681-1686
1682
• La Salle claims Louisiana territory for France and takes control of the Mississippi Valley
• William Penn founds Pennsylvania on the basis ofreligious toleration. ìWhen Wm. Penn came to Phila. in 1682 there were about 100 persons in the city, most of them living in caves made in the bluff fronting the river Delaware; the next year there were 80 houses, and the population had increased to 500.--Egle's "Hist. of Pa." p. 1021.
• George EMLEN arrives Philadelphia from England
1683
• Peace Treaty between William Penn and North American Indians
• First German immigrants come to North America -
• The first group of Germans to settle in Pennsylvania arrived in Philadelphia in 1683 from Krefeld, Germany, and included Mennonites and possibly some Dutch  Quakers.⁶
1685
• By 1685 as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania. Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans

n some religious beliefs and practices, they  differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society.⁶
• [In 1685 a Quaker who had previously been a Mennonite, Peter Schumacher of Kriegsheim near Worms, emigrated to Germantown, Pa.] ¹¹ This advents German immigration to Pennsylvania.
• France's Louis XIV revokes the Henry of Navarre [Henry IV of France] Edict of Nantes and  exiles thousands of French Protestants.The effect of the Revocation involved  much of Europe, it could not be contained to France alone, and so involved Germany . As a result of the mass migration caused by the Revocation and its effects, Holland, Switzerland and England also became involved .The effects of the French civil war precipitated by theRevocation of Henry's Edict of Nantes  87 years after its introduction (1598) by Louis XIV caused one more period of disaster for Europe. In retracting protection of  the protestant French Louis XIV  caused a tremendous exodous of many persons, among them the  trades and crafts people upon whom France depended, into other areas of Europe. The economic  disaster  in France spilled into europe, with  thousands of Huguenots fleeing to  other areas, including neighboring Germany and the Palatinate within it. The La Fevre and Ferree families emmigration out of France   and ultimate   emmigration to  Pennsylvania and Penn's protection is only one example. These families are allied with many of our early lines in Pennsylvania of the early- mid 18th century. ]


1688

• "Gabriel Thomas of England, in his "Narratives of Early Penna., & West Jersey" published in 1698, says: "Many fine houses in Phila. were built of brick, of three stories high, and as many several families in each; there was also a fine Town House, Market House & Prison." He also states that "about 20 fat bullocks are killed every week, besides calves, sheep & hogs, to supply the city."
• William of Orange lands in England
• The French Sun King marches into the Palatinate and claims it, sparking the War of the Grand Alliance [lAKA The Nine Years' War, AKA the War of the Palatinate,AKA  the War of the League of Augsburg, ] which started in 1689 and  which lasted until 1697. Germany, and the Palatinate in particular is again in ruins.  "Louis XIV suddenly precipitated eighty thousand troops on these people within the short period of seven weeks, &changed that Paradise into a desert. Heidelberg, Mannheim and Worms were looted and partly burned, twelve hundred villages were razed to the ground and 40,000 inhabitants robbed of all they had. For example, during the last night of a French  commander's  stay in one of these towns, he caused it to be socompletely &methodically plundered, that he had himself nothing but straw to sleep on; & the next day this bedding was employed in setting fire to the town, which was presently reduced to ashes. Since the day of the Huns, Europe beheld no such devastation. The Emperor of Germany who should have protected the Palatinate, had his  hands full with the Turks just then, &could do nothing to help them. ì⁴


1692

• Witchcraft hysteria begins in Salem, Massachusetts. Over the next two years, 20 persons are executed after trials find them guilty of being witches.


1694

• William Garrett emmigrated to Darby , Penna. sometime before  1694. Dtr Hannah is married in Phila that year
1697
• Last remains of Maya civilization destroyed by Spanish in the Yucatan of Mexico
• The War of The Grand Alliance Ends.


1699

• James LOGAN accompanies William Penn on his second crossing to his colony and served as his secretary.
• The capital of Virginia is moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg


1700

• Colonial Population Reaches 260,000  The three largest cities in the British North American colonies are Boston and Philadelphia with about 12,000 residents each, followed by New York, with 5,000 residents. The total colonial population, not counting Indians and slaves, is 260,000.
• "in speaking of Philadelphia  Egle, in his "History of Pa."writes that  there were 700 houses and a population of about 4500  in the city in 1700
1701
• The War of the SPanish Succesion begins, and with it, the French again marchnto the Palatinate.
• Robert Heath arrives  from Staffordshire, England, about 1701.
1708-9
• The people of the Palatinate, long suffering from war and its wholescale devastation are hit with the worst winter of their known history. The Rhine river was frozen for 5 weeks, cattle died in their stalls, birds fell frozen from the air. Thousands of germans flee as a result, and Londoners were astonished to learn that  thousands of inn keepers, professionals, and farmers of  the Rhein were camped under their London Bridge. Few tarried in England. They were the start of the massive German immigration to the new world.
1709-10
• Mennonite Bishop Hans Herr arrives 1709/10 settling south side of Pequa Creek, Lancaster, PA
1716
• Hostilities to Mennonites  in Germany increases under "Elector Charles Philip, 1716-42, for he doubled their protection fees, limited their right to purchase land, seeking thus to prevent the number of Mennonite families in the Palatinate to rise above 200. In the spring of 1717 some 300 Palatine Mennonites were in Rotterdam to embark for Pennsylvania where religious liberty was unrestricted; they received financial support from the Dutch Mennonites. (Editors note: THIS is the group in which Hans Herr embarked for America).  mennonite encyclopedia


1717

• Melchior BRENNEMAN arrived  24 Aug 1717 Via The Port Of Philadelphia, Pa. , died New Danville, Lancaster, Penna


1718

• France founds New Orleans


1720

• Yost Swope arrives to America about this year from the Palatinate
• Beginning in the 1720s significantly larger numbers of German Lutherans and German Reformed arrived in Pennsylvania. Many were motivated by economic considerations.


Sources:
1  English Settlement 1607- 1691 [a timeline presented by Annenberg/CPB Learner.org. ]
2  Virtual Jamestown Timeline
3  The Mennonite Encyclopedia , Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, PA, 1957
4  Professor Gerhard Rempel, Western New England College.
5. Edward W. Spangler. The Annals of the Families of Caspar, Henry, Baltzer and George Spengler. York, Pennsylvania: The York Daily Publishing Co., 1896.
6. Religion and the Founding of the American Republic. Part of the Library of Congress
7. V I R G I N I A    R E C O R D S    T I M E L I N E  part of the Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
8. the Pages of Virtual Jamestown , included but not limited to the Powhatan Indian Attack of March 22, 1622
9.National Library of Canada
10. Question on Apology for Slavery by Dr Kwame Nantambu
11. Mennonite Encyclopedia Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, PA, 1957 Sited by rrr@horseshoe.cc http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/places/germany/regions/palatinate/palatine.htm
11.  Medicine  (0001-2001). From Historymole.com
12. Yale Center for International and Area Studies. The Amistad Case Abolitionism Timeline