Very soon after its inception it became clear to many American politicians that the Articles of Confederation was too weak to serve as an effective guiding document for any efficient government. Amongst other weaknesses, it heavily de-centralized Federal power and placed it largely in the hands of states; it offered no mandates to enforce treaties; there was no chief executive who could serve as a proper head of state; it required nine of thirteen states to ratify any laws and states usually voted in blocks of smaller/larger and northern/southern leading to constant stalemate; no power to regulate commerce between states leading to constant economic chaos and confusion. By 1786 it had become clear that the Articles needed to be reformed, although the Representatives had yet to decide to abandon it all together, as they would a few years later. 

Following the culmination of the French-Indian War, also called the Seven-Years War, the French ceded control of all remaining North American continental territory. The Hudson Bay, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland had already been ceded to the British following conflicts earlier in the Century. The French loss control of lands west of the Mississippi to the Spanish as payment for acquired debts and would not gain control of these lands until the conquests of Napoleon.

The Treaty of Paris, which ended the French-Indian Wars, gave the British government control over massive swathes of land in Mid-West America. In an attempt to placate displaced and hostile Native Americans, the British government issued the Proclamation Act of 1763 which forbade any settlement of territory west of the Appalachians. 

The Northwest Territory was one of the first territories settled by the United States after independence and posed issues related to how new States would join the Union.  With the Northwest Ordinance, Congress created official measures for a territory to gain statehood.  The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were all created out of the Northwest Territory.

The Incident on King Street is known in America as the Boston Massacre.

The colonies were indeed upset by the mercantilist policies of England, which forbade the colonists from trading with anyone but England, and forbade them from crossing the Appalachian Mountains.  Bacon then led an uprising in 1676 in Jamestown, Virginia, during which he accusing the English governor of treason and killed many British and Native Americans.  He was not, however, successful.  Instead, Bacon died from typhus that was brought on by body lice!

John Adams said this. As one of the founding fathers, he was instrumental in writing the Declaration of Independence with Thomas Jefferson. He was the second President of the United States, and appointed John Marshall as chief justice. In doing so, he pushed to elevate the judicial branch to a point of equality with the legislative and executive branches.  

He also wrote Thoughts on Government, which laid out legislatures with upper and lower houses and became the basis of many state constitutions.  

Legally it only required that nine of the thirteen states ratify the Constitution before it went into effect as the supreme governing document of the United States. The first state to ratify was Delaware and the ninth was New Hampshire. Although it is worth noting that most politicians agreed that all thirteen states had to ratify the Constitution before it could be considered infallible, and the Union could be considered properly established, debate in Virginia and New York raged heatedly, with both states ratifying soon after New Hampshire. Only North Carolina and Rhode Island took significantly longer—North Carolina joining in November of 1789, and Rhode Island in May, 1790.

John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison promoted the ratification of the U.S. Constitution through their series of essays called The Federalist Papers.

Patrick Henry is credited with having delivered these words to the Virginia Convention in his successful effort to commit Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War effort.