Erika Moller
April 21, 2013
Module 1- Constitution Timeline
Instructor Deborah Halperin

Many events impacted the evolution of the United States of America. These events make what our country is today, from the Magna Carta to the May Flower Compact and so many more. If it wasn’t for these events and documents the United States would have been a different country today and we wouldn’t be as blessed as we are today. Each of these events has their own significant role they played to make the country a more outstanding and stronger country. First of all, in 1215 this document was created and was called The Magna Carta. This is a paper developed for the “purpose of limiting the powers of the monarch and preserving the basic legal rights of all free men in England” (Magna Carta, 1999). Magna Carta was initially developed because of disputes between the English barons, Pope Innocent III and King John and his about what rights the king had. Magna Carta recommended the king to let go of certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and acquire that the will of the king could be restrained by law. For the very first time this set a meaningful constitutional principle which was that the power of the king was controlled by a written grant. Secondly, in 1620, the Mayflower Compact was written. This was an agreement that was put together by an agreement of the new colonist appearing at New Plymouth back in November 1620. They had traveled over the ocean on the ship called Mayflower (Mayflower Compact -The Common Anchor, 2002). This was drawn up with fair and equal laws, for the general good of the agreement and with the will of the greater. This was signed to build a civil government based upon a major model and to proclaim the settlers loyalty to the king. They knew that the New World’s will fail in government. They hashed out the comfort and ultimately composed the Compact for the benefit of their own survival. Thirdly, in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was declared and signed and that is the reason why we celebrate 4th of July. The Declaration is a legal paper that states to the people the reasons that led the thirteen colonies to step away from the British Empire (The Declaration of Independence.., 2008). The Declaration was not only constitutional, but was put to practice as well. One of The Declaration's most known sentences says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (The Declaration of Independence.., 2008). The Declaration of Independence is a very valuable and important concept in the history of our country because it states that this country that we live in today the United States is a country not ruled by Great Britain and we became our own nation.

As we move along, in 1777, The Articles of Confederation documents came along. This served as the written paper that set the functions of the national government of this country the United States after it declared its independence from Great Britain (Articles of Confederation, 2010). The Continental Congress wrote this during the Revolutionary War. This was written to give the colonies some sense of a good government once the thirteen colonies evolve to becoming the thirteen states, but the thirteen