Growth of a New Government Adopted in 1781 as America's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation soon proved inadequate for governing the young nation. By 1787, the United States was in crisis. The states, officially united in a loose...

Confederation Years Successful British settlement of the New World began in 1607 at Jamestown on the coast of present-day Virginia. By the mid-1700s, thirteen colonies, under British control, had been established. They included Massachusetts, Rhode...

Continental Congress Excerpt from "Land Ordinance of 1785" Issued on May 20, 1785, by the Continental Congress Published in Documents of American History, edited by Henry S. Commager, 1943 When Virginia completed the cession, or turning...

Continental Congress Excerpt from "The Northwest Ordinance" Issued on July 13, 1787 Published in Documents of American History, edited by Henry S. Commager, 1943 On July 13, 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, a detailed...

The Continental Congress was the first de facto national government of the United States. It was a provisional government without a legal basis and was completely dependent on the colonies for political direction, funding and other resources. It...

A symposium of writers is the last place you would expect to find anything resembling consensus or even a clearly defined topic. It did not, therefore, come as a complete surprise that Gerald Early opened a conference on "The Black Diaspora" at the Library...

Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent. By Derek H. Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 309 pp. $39.95. "No provision of the Constitution," Justice Wiley Rutledge opined in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), "is more closely...

A timeline tracking the bald eagle's history, from its brush with extinction to its recovery._ Pre-1776: The number of bald eagles in North America is believed to total more than 250,000; they inhabit virtually ever large river, lake or estuary region on the continent._ 1782:...

The United States has picked Annapolis, Md., as the expected site of a Mideast peace conference this fall that President Bush hopes will launch new negotiations toward establishing an independent Palestinian state, The Associated Press has learned.The small city about 30 miles northeast of Washington...