Rhode Island and Connecticut were the only two self-governing colonies. They were both founded by dissenters from the Massachusetts Bay colony and directly elected the governor and representatives to the upper and lower houses. Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New York were all governed by a proprietor.

The Treaty of Fontainebleau was a secret agreement made between Spain and France towards the end of the French-Indian Wars. Realizing that they were likely to lose the Seven Years’ War with Great Britain, the French government desired that the territory of Louisiana should fall into the hands of the Spanish before Great Britain could get a hold of it. The stated reason at the time was to ensure that the citizens living there would remain under Catholicism; however, most historians believe the geopolitical situation with Britain was of greater significance. The Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the French-Indian Wars and gave Britain control of the Eastern portion of the Louisiana territory and ensured that Spain would control the Western portion and the major port city of New Orleans. 

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, is considered the "Father of the Constitution" for his role in drafting it and the Bill of Rights.

On November 11th, 1620, while still aboard the Mayflower, most adult Pilgrim men signed the Mayflower Compact.

Conceived by Roger Sherman and James Wilson, both delegates to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, the Three-Fifths Compromise established the weight of a state's slave population toward the number of its members to the House of Representatives.

The name given to the 1773 action of colonial patriots who, angered by British tea taxes, dressed as Mohawk indians, boarded ships in Boston Harbor, and dumped hundreds of crates of tea into the water was the Boston Tea Party. The British Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party with the Intolerable Acts, which led to the Revolutionary War.

In 1664, the British seized New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York.

Meeting in Virginia in 1619, the House of Burgesses was the first representative assembly in America. It was dissolved in 1774, by Royal Governor Lord Dunmore.

The exiled Pilgrim, Roger Williams, founded the community of Providence, in 1636, during the Antinomian Schism. Williams was a firm believer in the separation of church and state, as well as the rights of an individual to determine morality and sin for him or herself. His opinions were considered dangerous to the established church order, and he was banished in 1635. Williams was also one of the earliest supporters of Native American rights and equality, and he famously condemned King James I of England for establishing colonies in Native lands without providing monetary contribution. 

In 1765, the British Parliament was forced to repeal the Stamp Act, after widespread chaos and protest in the colonies; however, Parliament viewed this precedent as a dangerous trendsetter and sought to eradicate the problem before it could spread. To this end they affixed the Declaratory Act of 1766 to the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Act stated that British Parliament had as much power to fix laws in the colonies as it had back in Britain and throughout the rest of the Empire: parliament was the ultimate legal authority throughout the colonies.