Alexander Hamilton

On September 18, 1777, Hessian troops under von Knyphausen captured and burned the Valley Forge supply magazine despite Hamilton's and Lee's evacuation efforts.

Washington consulted his generals beginning October 29, 1777, and chose Valley Forge for strategic, political, and environmental reasons.

By the end of December 1777, congressional neglect had dried up supplies, leaving Washington unable to feed or clothe his soldiers.

Washington led his 12,000-man Continental Army into winter quarters at Valley Forge on December 19, 1777, beginning a six-month encampment.

Robert Morris presented the bank plan to Congress.

Congress chartered the Bank of North America.

The bank opened in Philadelphia.

Thomas Willing became the bank's first president, serving 1781–1791, while Benjamin Franklin bought a single token share in a gesture of good faith.

Robert Morris presented a banking plan in May 1781, drawing on Hamilton's recommendations, and Congress chartered the bank on May 26, 1781.

The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia on January 7, 1782, as the first chartered bank in the United States.

By 1783 several states, including Massachusetts, allowed taxes to be paid in bank notes; postwar economic turmoil later prompted petitions to revoke the Pennsylvania charter.

Founded by a group including Alexander Hamilton, the bank opened on June 9, 1784, before its full $500,000 capital had been raised.

On February 21, 1787, the Confederation Congress endorsed holding a convention in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation.

Delegates began arriving in Philadelphia in May 1787; Washington arrived May 9, and the convention formally began on May 25.

Among its first acts, the convention unanimously elected George Washington of Virginia as its presiding president.

The Independent Journal released the first Federalist essay on October 27, 1787, becoming the first newspaper to publish the series.

Over the following month, seven more essays appeared in The Independent Journal and two other New York newspapers.

After a postponed opening on May 14 for lack of a quorum, the convention assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, sitting until September 17.

On September 17, 1787, delegates voted on the constitution, Jacob Shallus inscribed it on parchment, and 39 of 55 delegates signed the document.

Within three days of the September 17, 1787 signing, the Constitution was submitted to the Congress of the Confederation, then sitting in New York City.

The election spanned December 15, 1788 to January 7, 1789, the first national presidential election and the only one spanning two calendar years without a contingent election.

A deadlock persisted through January 7, 1789, the final day for choosing electors, so New York failed to appoint its eight constitutionally allocated electors.

Electors assembled on the scheduled day and every one of the 69 present voted for Washington, producing a unanimous election.

John Adams received 34 electoral votes, one short of a majority; under pre-Twelfth Amendment rules the runner-up became vice president without needing a majority.

The U.S. Congress first met in 1789, replacing the Congress of the Confederation. The specific 1790 Philadelphia session is not supported by the supplied passages.

A treasury board consisting of three commissioners oversaw the finances of the confederation of former colonies until September 1789.

Congress enacted legislation on September 2, 1789, establishing a permanent Department of Treasury to manage government finances.

On September 11, 1789, Hamilton was nominated, confirmed in the Senate, and sworn in the same day as the first Secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton proposed funding the bank through $10 million in stock sales, with the United States government purchasing the first $2 million in shares.

The bank formed part of a three-part expansion of federal fiscal power; Hamilton also proposed raising duties on imported spirits and an excise on whiskey to meet government payment obligations.

The United States Congress chartered the Bank of the United States for twenty years on February 25, 1791, and Washington signed the bank bill into law the same day.

Washington appointed three subscription commissioners on March 19, 1791; the Philadelphia branch opened December 12, 1791, operating from Carpenters' Hall, with Willing elected President in October.

President Washington delivered the first regular annual message to Congress in New York City.

Hamilton presented his financial plan to Congress, recommending debt reorganization.

The Supreme Court held its first meeting in New York City.

Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison reached a political agreement on debt and capital location.

The Senate approved the Residence Act on July 1, 1790, by a vote of 14 to 12, following earlier failed reconciliations.

The House of Representatives approved the act on July 9, 1790, by a vote of 31 to 29, correcting legacy errors.

President Washington signed the Residence Act into law on July 16, 1790, establishing a permanent seat along the Potomac River and designating Philadelphia as the temporary capital.

The Assumption Bill cleared the House on July 26, 1790, allowing the federal government to assume state debts.

In 1793 Alexander Hamilton recruited Webster to New York City to edit a Federalist newspaper, lending him $1,500 for the move.

In December 1793 Webster founded the American Minerva, New York's first daily newspaper, whose first edition appeared on December 9, 1793.

Webster wrote the first known newspaper editorial in the first edition of the American Minerva in December 1793.

The American Minerva changed its name in 1797, becoming the Commercial Advertiser, which was published with slight name variations until 1904.

William Branch Giles introduced three sets of resolutions in 1793 attempting to censure Hamilton's financial administration and force repayment of debts to France.

After Britain entered the war against France in 1793, the Royal Navy seized nearly 300 American merchantmen, and Congress voted on a trade embargo in March 1794.

Hamilton devised a negotiating framework, and Washington dispatched Chief Justice John Jay to London to negotiate a comprehensive treaty with Britain.

The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation was signed on November 19, 1794, during the Thermidorian Reaction in France, and submitted to the Senate the following June.

Wartime debts and the Canada–US border went to arbitration; Americans gained most-favored-nation trade, and Britain agreed to vacate eight forts on US territory by June 1796.

Washington submitted the treaty to the Senate in June 1795; it was ratified on June 24, 1795 by a 20–10 vote, exactly the minimum needed for concurrence.

After the treaty took effect on 29 February 1796, a bitter House funding fight ensued; Fisher Ames's April 1796 speech preceded a final vote deadlocked at 49 to 49.

Power passed from Washington's administration to Adams following the 1796 election, the first contested American presidential contest.

Hamilton convinced at least 7 of 69 electors to withhold votes from Adams, seeking an overwhelming victory for Washington's preferred outcome.

Adams took the presidential oath on March 4, 1797, becoming the nation's second president after the first contested election.

Electors met in their respective states on December 3, 1800, casting ballots that produced a tie between Jefferson and Burr.

In February 1801 the House balloted as states to choose between Jefferson and Burr for president.

Electoral ballots were opened and counted on February 11, 1801, with Georgia's certificate differing from the others.

Unlike 1796, both parties formally nominated tickets for the 1800 election.

Aaron Burr employed unorthodox public campaigning methods, credited by some historians with inventing modern electioneering.

Six of the sixteen participating states used some form of popular vote to choose electors.

The first edition of the New-York Evening Post was printed in New York in 1801, in the autumn of that year.

Burr and Hamilton met at dawn on July 11, 1804, at the Heights of Weehawken, New Jersey, a known dueling ground on the Hudson River.

Alexander Hamilton died on July 12, 1804, at Bayard's home in Greenwich Village, New York City, following the duel.