This section of the timeline of United States history concerns events from before the lead up to the American Revolution ().

Antiquity

27,000–12,000 years ago – Humans cross the Beringia land bridge into North and then South America. Dates of earliest migration to the Americas is highly debated. c. 15,500 year old arrowhead; oldest verified arrowhead in the Americas, found in Texas. c. 11,500 BCE – Start of Clovis Culture in North America. c. 10,200 BCE – Cooper Bison skull is painted with a red zigzag in present-day Oklahoma, becoming the oldest known painted object in North America. c. 9500 BC – Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets retreat enough to open a habitable ice-free corridor through the northern half of the continent (North America) along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. c. 1000 BCE-1000 CE – Woodland Period of Pre-Columbian Native Americans in Eastern America. 200 CE – Pyramid of the Sun built near modern-day Mexico City. 250–900 CE – Classic Period of the Maya Civilization. 600 CE – Emergence of Mississippian culture in North America.

988–1490 986 – Norsemen settle Greenland and Bjarni Herjólfsson sights coast of North American mainland, but doesn't land (see also Norse settlement of the Americas). : Norse settle briefly in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.Birgitta Wallace, "The Norse in Newfoundland: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland." Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 19.1 (2005). online c. 1100 – Oraibi was founded the year of 1128 CE, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements within the United States.Casey, Robert L. Journey to the High Southwest. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2007: 382. . c. 1100-1200 – Cahokia near modern-day St. Louis reaches its apex population. c. 1190 – Construction begins on the Cliff Palace by Ancestral Puebloans in modern-day Colorado c. 1325 – Tenochtitlan founded as part of the Aztec Empire. c. 1400 – Beginning of the European Age of Discovery. : Norse colony in Greenland dies out. 1473 – João Vaz Corte-Real perhaps reaches Newfoundland; writes about the "Land of Cod fish" in his journal. 1479 - Treaty of Toledo ends the War of the Castilian Succession. Portugal won the exclusive right of navigating, conquering and trading in all the Atlantic Ocean south of the Canary Islands, forcing Spain to sail west to India. before 1492 – Population estimates in the New World before European contact may be as high as 112 million people.

1492–1499

1492 – Christopher Columbus, financed by Spain, lands on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas, discovering the New World for Europe. 1496 – Santo Domingo, the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas, is settled. 1497 – John Cabot lands in Newfoundland, beginning the British colonial presence in Continental North America.

1500–1599 1500 – Disappearance of Mississippian culture. 1503 – Jaragua massacre takes place. 1504 – Higüey massacre occurs. 1507 – A new world map by Martin Waldseemuller names the continents of the New World "America" in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. 1508 – First European colony and oldest known European settlement in a United States territory is founded at Caparra, Puerto Rico, by Juan Ponce de León. 1512 – Laws of Burgos is established. 1513 – Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses isthmus of Panama, sees the Pacific Ocean. 1517 – Protestant reformation takes place. 1520s – The Spanish begin the conquest of Aztec Empire. 1521 – Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire. 1524 – Giovanni da Verrazzano, working for France, explores coastline from present-day Maine to North Carolina. 1526 – Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón briefly establishes the failed settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape in South Carolina, the first site of enslavement of Africans in North America and of the first slave rebellion. 1527 – Doomed Narvaez expedition to Florida and Gulf coast. 1534 – Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula (modern Quebec) and claimed the land for France. 1539 – Hernando de Soto had 200 executed, in what was to be called Napituca Massacre. 1540 – Francisco Vázquez de Coronado is infamous for the Tiguex Massacres, after seizing the houses, food and clothing of the Tiwa Puebloans and raped their people, his army found themselves in conflict with the Rio Grande natives, which led to the brutal Tiguex War. 1540 – Pedro de Tovar comes in contact with the Hopi people at Oraibi as part of the expedition led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado 1541 – Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River, strengthening Spanish claims to the interior of North America. 1562 – Jean Ribault, leaves France with 150 colonists for the New World, establishing Charlesfort on Parris Island in South Carolina, which was abandoned several years later. 1564 – French Fort Caroline established on the banks of the St. Johns River, Florida; Colonized by huguenots, sacked by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565. 1565 – Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founds St. Augustine, Florida, the earliest successful European settlement in the future continental United States. 1570 – Spanish attempt to found the Ajacán Mission in Virginia 1570s – Iroquois Confederacy founded. 1579 – Francis Drake claims the lands of California for England and Queen Elizabeth I, landing in Drake's Bay and naming it New Albion. 1585 – Sir Walter Raleigh founds Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in the New World, though he never set foot in it. 1587 – Virginia Dare was born on Roanoke, making her the first English child known to be born in the New World. The first Asians to set foot on what would be the United States occurred when Filipino sailors arrived in Spanish ships at Morro Bay, California; see Landing of the first Filipinos. 1588 – First battle of the English against the Spanish Armada begins, leading to their defeat and the lessening of Spain's influence in the New World and the rise of English influence in the Americas. 1590 – Roanoke Colony found deserted. 1599 – Juan de Oñate and Vicente de Zaldívar committed the Ácoma Massacre killing approximately 500 warriors and 300 civilians of the Acoma Pueblos. And committed the Sandia Mountains massacre, killing 900 Tompiro Indians. King Philip III later punished Oñate for his cruelty.

1600–1699

1600s 1602 – Bartholomew Gosnold is the first Englishman to land on the New England coast, exploring and naming Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. 1605 – First capital of Acadia (French) was established as Port-Royal in modern-day Nova Scotia; it lasted until 1613. George Weymouth explores New England. 1606 – The joint-stock company Virginia Company of London is founded and granted a Royal Charter by James I to settle in the New World. 1607 – Establishment of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. The short lived Popham Colony founded in Maine by the Virginia Company of Plymouth. 1608 – Founding of Quebec (Habitation de Québec) by Samuel de Champlain. 1609 – Henry Hudson explores the Hudson River and Delaware Bay for the Dutch. 1609–10 – The Starving Time at Jamestown.

1610s 1610 – Santa Fe, New Mexico established by Spain. 1612 – The Dutch establish a fur trading center with the Native Americans on Manhattan Island. 1614 – Dutch claim New Netherland. John Rolfe successfully harvests tobacco in Jamestown, Virginia, ensuring the colony's success. 1615 – Fort Nassau (North River) founded near Albany, New York. 1619 – First enslaved Africans to the North American colonies arrived in Jamestown, Virginia aboard the White Lion. The House of Burgesses, the first democratically elected legislative body in English North America was formed in Jamestown. 1619 – Squanto return to northeast America after living in England.

1620s

1620 – Mayflower Compact signed. Plymouth Colony is founded in what would be Massachusetts, by the Plymouth Company. 1621 – Anthony Johnson is held as an Indentured servant in the Colony of Virginia. 1622 – Indian massacre of 1622 in Virginia. 1624 – King James I revokes the Virginia Company's charter, and Virginia becomes a royal colony. Foundation of New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company; would later be renamed New York. 1625 – King James I dies; King Charles I becomes King of England. 1628 – Massachusetts Bay Colony founded.

1630s

1630 – Winthrop Fleet to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Manor of Rensselaerswyck founded. Boston founded. 1632 – Province of Maryland founded. 1633 – Smallpox kills roughly 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Indians. 1634 – Theologian Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1634 – Jean Nicolet founds Green Bay, Wisconsin. 1636 – Connecticut Colony founded by Thomas Hooker. 1636 – Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations founded by Roger Williams. 1636 – Harvard College founded.

1637 – New Haven Colony founded. 1638 – The Free Grace Controversy ended, when Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1638 – Roger Williams founded the First Baptist Church in America. 1638 – Pequot War ends in New England. New Sweden established around the southern Delaware River by Peter Minuit. 1639 – Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony signed. Fundamental Orders of Connecticut adopted and the Crown formally recognizes the Virginia Assembly.

1640s 1640 – French and Iroquois Wars escalate to full warfare. 1640 – Virginia courts sentence John Punch a black indentured servant to life of servitude for running away from an abusive plantation owner Hugh Gwyn. 1642 – Beginning of the English Civil War. Montreal founded. 1643 – New England Confederation created. 1643–1645 – Kieft's War in New Netherland. 1644–1646 – Third Anglo–Powhatan War. 1649 – Maryland Toleration Act. Execution of King Charles I and the establishment of Commonwealth in England.

1650s 1651 – In the wake of the English Civil War, Virginia acknowledges the authority of the Parliament of England. 1655 – New Sweden becomes incorporated into the Dutch colony of New Netherland. 1655 – John Casor was declared a slave for life after Anthony Johnson, a free black man, sued Robert Parker for stolen services. 1656 – Elizabeth Key Grinstead was one of the first black people to sue for freedom for alleged slavery and win. 1656 – First Quakers arrive in New England. 1655 – Peach War. 1658 – Death of Oliver Cromwell. 1659–1663 – Esopus Wars.

1660s

1660 – Commonwealth of England collapses, Charles II is restored to the throne. 1660 – The Royal African Company is founded. 1662 – The Virginia Colony passed a law incorporating the principal of partus sequitur ventrem, ruling that children of enslaved mothers would be born into slavery, regardless of their father's race or status 1662 – Halfway Covenant adopted. 1663 – The Rhode Island Royal Charter provided recognition to the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, and outlined many freedoms including freedom of religion and acknowledged Indian rights to the soil. 1663 – King Charles II grants charter for a new colony, (Province of Carolina). 1663 – Gloucester County, Virginia Revolt 1664 – New Amsterdam captured by the English at the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. New Jersey and New York established as Proprietary Colonies of England. Royal Commission of 1664 sent to increase royal oversight of New England. 1665 – The Duke's Laws are issued. 1667 – New Netherland ceded to England under Treaty of Breda. 1667 – Virginia law enacted, declaring that baptism of slaves does not exempt them from bondage. 1668 – French found Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan 1669 – Virginia law enacted, that killing one's own enslaved people was not a felony. 1669 – The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina are drawn up. 1669–1670 – John Lederer of Virginia explores the Appalachian Mountains.

1670s 1670 – Charles Town (Charleston) founded in present-day South Carolina. 1671 – The Batts-Fallam expedition sponsored by Abraham Wood reaches the New River (West Virginia). 1672 – Blue Laws enacted in Connecticut.