th State of the Union.
2/1/1788, Georgia became the 4th State of the Union.
18/12/1787, New Jersey became the 3rd State of the Union.
12/12/1787, Pennsylvania became the 2nd State of the Union.
7/12/1787, Delaware, the Diamond or First State, achieved Statehood.
17/9/1787, The constitution of the United States of America was signed.
15/9/1787, George Mason, a plantation owner from Virginia, called for an amendment to the draft US Constitution. To avoid the Federal government becoming oppressive, he called for a clause whereby if twonthirds of the States wished, Congress would have to agree to a convention to discuss the proposed government change or policy. This change to Article V was incorporated as Mason desired.
25/5/1787. The Philadelphia Convention, headed by George Washington, began drawing up the USA Constitution. On 17/9/1787 the Constitution was agreed by 39 out of 42 delegates.
25/1/1787, An abortive attempt to seize the US arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts.
9/9/1786. George Washington called for the abolition of slavery.
25/11/1783. British troops evacuated from New York.
2/9/1783 Britain recognised the United States by signing the Treaty of Paris, thus ending the American War of Independence. By this treaty northern Florida was ceded by Britain to the USA but on the same day Britain had signed the Treaty of Versailles, ceding west Florida to Spain. This caused controversy for some year until the Treaty of Madrid in 1795 in which Spain ceded lands east of the Mississippi to the USA. The Spanish also regained Minorca from the British, and France got Senegal and Tobago from Britain. However in Senegal the British retained the Gambia river valley. Britain also paid a war indemnity of £10 million.
Britain had sent a force of 60,000 men to fight a much larger population on their own ground, when Holland, France and Spain had sided with the opposition.
23/5/1783, James Otis, US patriot (born 5/2/1725), died from a lightning strike.
19/4/1783, US Congress officially proclaimed victory in the War of Independence.
10/11/1782. The Americans massacred the British-backed Shawnee Indians. 1,000 Kentucky riflemen fired unremittingly on them, and destroyed their food stockpiles.
7/1782, British troops left Savannah for England.
12/4/1782, Admiral Rodney defeated a French fleet off the West Indies in the Battle of the Saints; named after the nearby Saints Islands. This was during the War of American Independence.
18/3/1782, John Calhoun, US statesman (died 31/1/1850) was born.
27/2/1782. The UK Parliament rejected Lord North’s appeal to continue the American War. Lord North resigned on 19/3/1782 and was replaced by Lord Rockingham.
1781, The US Department of State was created. It was known as the Department of Foreign Affairs until 1789.
19/10/1781. British forces under Lord Cornwallis, 7,000 soldiers, urrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia. This was a combined force of Americans and their French allies. This ended the American War of Independence.
5/10/1781, After the victory at Chesapeake Bay (5/9/1781), George Washington commenced a heavy attack on the British besieged in Yorktown.
16/9/1781, The British holding Yorktown scuttled ships in the estuary of Yorktown to try and thwart a French attack by sea. The British had superior sea-power (but faced a French naval threat) whilst the American rebels controlled the inland regions. The British hoped that some 2,000 escaped slaves, who believed a British victory would mean freedom for them, would enable their victory, but the Carolinas area could not be held against American forces. In August 1781 the British commander, Cornwallis, retreated to Virginia and established a defensive perimeter at Yorktown, Besides French warships, the British knew that the French commander Rochambeau was marching south from the Hudson Valley. The British sailed south from New York to support Yorktown, but a cannon battle off Yorktown between British and French proved inconclusive. After five days the British fleet under Graves, outgunned, withdrew back to New York. Yorktown was