By 1860, catholicism was the largest religious denomination in the united states.

Colonial America took root in Virginia in 1607 and gained momentum when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts. By 1760, there were two million settlers.

In 1630, a group of Puritans, led by John Winthrop, established the Massachusetts Bay Colony after fleeing religious persecution in England.

In 1637, Anne Hutchinson was put on trial in Massachusetts for promoting "free grace" theology and challenging colonial authorities.

In 1640, Henry Dunster became the first President of Harvard College and helped lay the foundational structure for America’s most renowned institution for higher learning.

The Half-Way Covenant adjusted the requirements for full membership in the New England Congregational churches

For 14 months (1675-1676), Indians raided settlements and colonialists launched counterattacks. It ended after King Philip, the chief of the Wampanoag Indian tribe, was assassinated.

The formation of a presbytery in Philadelphia in 1706 brought official Presbyterianism to the colonies.

In 1727, Paul Palmer founded North Carolina’s first Baptist Church. This led to the spread of Baptist churches throughout the state.

By adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith (1729) as its doctrinal standard, American Presbyterianism moved a step closer to becoming a fully regularized denomination.

In 1736, John and Charles Wesley arrived in Savannah, Georgia. Although disappointing, the mission impacted the early stages of Methodism.

George Whitefield's preaching tour (1739-1740) helped propel his career as the preeminent revivalist of the First Great Awakening.

Gilbert Tennent's 1740 sermon, "The Dangers of an Unconverted Ministry," helped spark the Old Side-New Side division among American Presbyterians.

The Philadelphia Baptist Association adopted the Philadelphia Confession of Faith in 1742, unifying Particular Baptist churches throughout the country.

Jonathan Edwards published The Life of David Brainerd (1749) to promote evangelical theology during the First Great Awakening.

The Plan of Union in 1758 ended the Old Side-New Side controversy among American Presbyterians.

Touro Synagogue was dedicated in 1763 in Newport, R.I. It is the oldest dedicated synagogue in America.

Junipero Serra established Mission San Diego on July 16, 1769. This helped extend Spanish control in California and brought Christianity to Native Americans.

Mary Evans Thorne is believed to be the first woman appointed as a class leader in American Methodism around 1770.

Methodist missionary Francis Asbury travels from England to America in 1771 and becomes the leader of American Methodism.

Ann Lee (1736-1784) brought a Christian sect known as the Shakers from England to the American colonies in 1774.

The Quebec Act of 1774 led to a resurgence in anti-Catholic sentiment in the American colonies and increased tensions between colonists and the British government.

When the first shots were fired in 1775, the Colonies didn’t even have a military. Eight years later, the United States had defeated England.

Itinerant preacher Benjamin Randall organized the Free Will Baptists in New England in 1780.

With independence won, the United States of America began creating a new government during the Founding Period (1783-1791), including the selection of the first president.

The Christmas Conference of 1784 allowed American Methodists to establish their new denominational identity in the United States and to reaffirm their opposition to slavery.

In 1789, Georgetown University became the first Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States.

On November 6, 1789, the first diocese in the United States was established in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Second Great Awakening(s) (1790s-1840s) fueled the rise of an evangelical Protestant majority in antebellum America, giving rise to new denominations and social reform organizations.

President George Washington's 1790 letter to Jews in Rhode Island is widely regarded as his most emphatic endorsement of religious liberty and acceptance.

In 1794, Daniel Asbury and the Methodists held the first recognized camp meeting in the United States.

In 1800, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ formed as a result of evangelizing German immigrants. It is the first uniquely American denomination.

In 1801, the Plan of Union united the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists in efforts to evangelize the Midwest.

In May 1807, John Gloucester organized the first African American Presbyterian Church.

In 1810, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions formed in order to send Congregationalist and Presbyterian missionaries all over the world.

The War of 1812 (1812-1815) is often called the second American Revolutionary War, because it again pitted America against Britain.

In 1814, the Triennial Convention became the first formal Baptist missionary agency in America.

In 1816, the African Methodist Episcopal Church formed after years of unequal treatment with white Methodists. It is the oldest existing African-American denomination in the U.S.

Francis Asbury’s 1816 death marked the end of an influential 55-year ministry, but American Methodists continued to flourish following his death.

In 1819, American Methodists organized their first missionary societies in New York and Philadelphia.

In 1826, the Methodist Episcopal Church commissioned the Christian Advocate, a weekly newspaper that became one of the most popular periodicals in the country.

The Oblate Sisters of Providence, founded in Baltimore, Md., in 1829, was the first Roman Catholic congregation founded by women of African descent.

Nat Turner’s rebellion (1831) is the most famous slave revolt in American history.

In 1835, Methodist missionaries established a mission and manual labor school for American Indians, which was largely unsuccessful.

In 1836, Angelina Grimke published Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, which urged other southern Christian women to denounce slavery.

Jarena Lee’s 1836 autobiography is one of the first extended life accounts of a black woman in America.

In 1836, the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Emory College in Georgia.

The New School-Old School controversy, driven by theological differences during the Second Great Awakening, split the mainstream of American Presbyterianism in 1837.

Under Rebecca Gratz's oversight, the first free Hebrew Sunday school opened in Philadelphia in 1838.

In 1842, four Mormon women organized the Female Relief Society to aid the poor and help women grow in the church.

In 1843, Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) first published The Way of Holiness, an important evangelical classic outlining a "shorter way" to ecstatic union with God.

In 1843, abolitionists split from the Methodist Episcopal Church over slavery and church governance.

In 1845, the contentious issue of American slavery divided the Methodist Episcopal Church into Northern and Southern denominations.

In 1846, the Freewill Baptists ordained Ruby Knapp Bixby, making her the first licensed female Baptist preacher.

In 1847, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, early missionaries to the Oregon territory, were killed by the Cayuse Indians in a widely publicized massacre.

America's Spiritualism movement, which believes spirits of the dead can communicate with the living through mediums, traces its roots to two young girls in 1848.

In 1851, the Baptist Landmarker movement began and embroiled the Southern Baptist Convention in controversy.

In 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1886) spread a powerful message that slavery was evil and Christian love could eradicate it.

In the 1850s-1880s, Chinese and Japanese immigrants brought Buddhism to America as they searched for work in Hawaii's plantations and California's gold rush.

An 1854 speech by Native American Chief Seattle (1780-1866) inspired the 20th century environmental movement, despite being heavily rewritten.

Benjamin Titus Roberts and John Wesley Redfield founded the Free Methodist Church in 1860 after failing to reform the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In the 1860s, the Freedmen's Aid Society formed with the goal of increasing educational opportunities for blacks in the American South.

In 1863, Ellen G. White (1827-1915), was instrumental in founding the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which worships on Saturday and believes Christ's return is imminent.

In 1864, former Methodist Episcopal Church pastor John Chivington led a massacre against Colorado Native Americans, now known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

After 30 years of division between New School and Old School Presbyterians, the factions reunited in 1869.

Fanny Crosby’s "Blessed Assurance" (1873) became one of the most popular Christian hymns.

In 1873, Lottie Moon went to China as a Southern Baptist missionary at a time when sending unmarried women to the mission field was rare.

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was founded in November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio, after a series of anti-alcohol protests by women.

Founded in New York in 1875, the Theosophical Society popularized such Eastern tenets as karma and reincarnation in a new religious movement emphasizing spiritual evolution.

The Salvation Army conducted its first formal meeting in the United States in New York City in 1880.

Use of peyote, a psychedelic source for Native American spirit ceremonies, became widespread in the mid-1880s. In 1906, peyote groups formed the Native American Church.

On April 24, 1886, Augustus Tolton became the first fully and recognizably African-American Catholic priest.

Abolition freed the slaves, but blacks were kept segregated from whites in the South through local and state regulations known as Jim Crow laws (1890-1965).

Rerum Novarum, an 1891 encyclical by Pope Leo XIII on protecting the working class, is a foundational text in modern Catholic social thought.

In 1893, the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago introduced many non-Christian faiths to America -- including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Jainism, Shinto and Taoism.

The Church of God in Christ was formed in 1897 in Mississippi. It is the oldest and largest black Pentecostal body in the United States.

On November 3, 1898, Japanese immigrants built the first Shinto shrine in the United States in Hilo, Hawaii.

On November 21, 1899, President William McKinley told Methodist leaders that he had been divinely inspired to annex the Philippines.

On Jan. 7, 1906, Indian-born Swami Trigunatita helped build one of the first Hindu temples of the western world in San Francisco.

The Northern Baptist Convention formed in 1907 and represents the theologically liberal and politically progressive strains of the Baptist tradition.

In 1908, the Methodist Episcopal Church developed an official creed to address social problems of poverty and child labor exploitation.

Fulfilling the wishes of his Sufi teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan sailed to America in 1910 to spread the message of this mystical arm of Islam.

World War I (1914-1919) began in Europe, but grew into an unprecedented global conflict with 65 million troops. It was called the Great War.

Xavier University of Louisiana (est. 1915) is the only historically black Catholic institution of higher learning in America.

In 1918, Alma Bridwell White (1862-1946) was consecrated bishop of a Holiness sect she founded, becoming the first woman bishop of a Christian church.

In 1920, the National Catholic Welfare Council gave aid and guidance to new Catholic immigrants through its Bureau of Immigration.

In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick's sermon accused fundamentalists of being "essentially illiberal and intolerant." His subsequent dismissal made Fosdick a martyr for liberal mainline Christianity.

John Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism (1923) challenged the cultural shift toward modernist interpretations of the Bible within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Shailer Mathews's The Faith of Modernism (1924) was an influential systematic theology of theological liberalism.

The Scopes Trial (1925) highlighted the tension between literal interpretations of creation accounts in the Bible and evolutionary theory in the 20th century.

In 1929, Syrian-Lebanese immigrants constructed the first purpose-built mosque in America in Ross, N.D., to serve their small community of Muslims.

On June 2, 1930, Sarah Dickson became the first female elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

In 1933, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin founded the Catholic Worker Movement, a group of Catholic communities promoting social justice and hospitality toward the poor.

In 1935, the two major "branches" of Free Will Baptists joined together to form the National Association of Free Will Baptists.

The Bible Presbyterian Church, led by Carl McIntire in 1937, was the product of division between Presbyterian traditionalists and fundamentalists in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

With the rise of Adolf Hitler, Germany began annexing neighboring countries, leading to the second World War (1939-1945) and the deadliest conflict in world history.

The National Association of Evangelicals was founded in 1942 to provide representation for evangelicals in Washington, D.C., and with the broadcasting industry.

Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, published in 1946, continues to be used by followers of his Self-Realization Fellowship and as college textbooks.

In 1946, John R. Mott was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting religious peace through his ecumenical efforts.

In this 1947 case, the Supreme Court first applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (i.e. no law establishing religion) to the states.

Billy Graham's Los Angeles Crusade (1949) catapulted the southern evangelist into the national spotlight for the first time.

The Bible Baptist Fellowship formed after a split with J. Frank Norris in 1950 and became the largest association of independent Baptists in America.

In 1953, Billy Graham's decision to hold an integrated crusade in the South helped shift racial attitudes among white evangelicals.

America’s two-decade involvement in the Vietnam War (1955-1975) was costly and divisive. It claimed more than 58,000 U.S. lives and cost 140 billion dollars.

Margaret Towner's ordination in 1956 was the culmination of a long struggle for gender equality in the Presbyterian Church USA.

Founded in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) believed that racial equality was a Christian imperative and utilized non-violent protests to combat racism.

In 1958, Huston Smith published his landmark textbook on comparative religion, The Religions of Man in 1958, later renamed The World's Religions.

The Japanese-based Soka Gakkai Buddhist society commissioned its U.S. chapter in 1960. In 1991, the chapter reorganized as Soka Gakkai International-USA.

John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic President of the United States when he defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 election.

In 1961, the Progressive National Baptist Convention split from the National Baptist Convention, USA, due to disputes regarding Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights activism.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was a Catholic ecumenical council that attempted to reconcile Catholicism with the challenges of modernity.

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that required Bible readings and recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the public schools was unconstitutional.

On September 15, 1963, a bomb detonated inside 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama. Four young African-American girls were killed, sparking national outrage.

After winning his first heavyweight championship in 1964, boxer Cassius Clay (1942-2016) announced he had converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (i.e., Hart-Celler Act) permitted more Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu immigrants into the United States, changing the U.S. religious landscape.

Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-97) started the Church of Satan in 1966, offering a new Golden Rule: "Do unto others as they do unto you."

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a movement influenced by both Catholicism and Pentecostalism and whose American roots can be traced to Duquesne University in 1967.

In 1967, Albert Cleage revealed to his congregation a painting called "The Black Madonna," a provocative start to the Black Christian Nationalist Movement.

In 1968, the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Pilgrim Holiness Church merged to form the Wesleyan Church.

In 1969, this Supreme Court case prohibited the government from interfering in doctrinal disputes between churches.

This 1971 ruling established an influential precedent (the "Lemon test") for whether a law violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

On June 3, 1972, Sally Priesand became the first female rabbi ordained in America -- and the first woman in Judaism to earn seminary ordination.

In 1973, conservative Presbyterians dissatisfied with the liberal tendencies of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. left to form the Presbyterian Church in America.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter was the first self-proclaimed "born again" Christian elected president of the United States.

In 1978, the Church of Latter-day Saints opened the priesthood to male members of African descent for the first time.

In 1979, Baptist conservatives elected Adrian Rogers as president of the Southern Baptist Convention as the first part of a takeover strategy.

Marjorie Matthews was elected bishop in the United Methodist church in 1980. She was the first female elected bishop of any mainline Christian church.

The Islamic Society of North America was created in 1982 as an umbrella group to support and unite the burgeoning Muslim population in America.

In 1983, the Catholic bishops of the United States published the "Challenge of Peace," which denounced the arms race during the Cold War.

The United States Catholic bishops wrote the pastoral letter entitled "Economic Justice for All" (1986) to promote the economic well-being for all citizens.

Built in 1988, Hsi Lai Temple near Los Angeles is the largest Buddhist temple in the western hemisphere.

This 1989 case dealt with religious holiday symbols on government property and found that a combination of religious symbols does not violate the Establishment Clause.

Moderate Southern Baptists formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991 to protest the conservative dominance in the denomination during the prior decade.

Most remember the Branch Davidians, a sect of Seventh-day Adventism, the US Government laying siege to their compound outside of Waco, Texas in 1993.

Despite passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, legal judgments continued to challenge the use of peyote in religious services until 1994.

The Million Man March in 1995, organized by the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan, was the largest gathering of African Americans in U.S. history.

On September 11, 2001 ("9/11"), al-Qaeda terrorists crashed two planes into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon. More than 3,000 people died.

In November 2006, voters in Georgia and Hawaii elected the first two Buddhists --Democrats Hank Johnson and Mazie Hirono -- to the U.S. Congress.

In 2008 and 2012, the United Methodist Church denied changes in the Book of Discipline, which would have permitted a more liberal stance on homosexuality.

Mitt Romney became the first Mormon nominee for president when he ran as a Republican in 2012 against Barack Obama.

On June 19, 2014, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) passed an amendment to allow pastor to perform same-sex marriages.