March 31, 1776 - Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, urging him and the other members of the Continental Congress not to forget about the nation’s women when fighting for America’s independence from Great Britain.

March 4, 1797 - John Adams inaugurated as 2nd president of U.S.

July 7, 1797 - For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives exercises its constitutional power of impeachment and votes to charge Senator William Blount of Tennessee with "a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public duty and trust as a Senator." July 8, 1797 - Senate voted by a two-thirds majority to expel him from its ranks. 1790 - President George Washington appointed Blount, who had fought in the American Revolution, as governor of the "Territory South of the River Ohio," now known as Tennessee. Although he was a successful territorial governor, personal financial problems led him to enter into a conspiracy with British officers to enlist frontiersmen and Cherokee Indians to assist the British in conquering parts of Spanish Florida and Louisiana. Before the conspiracy was uncovered, Blount presided over the Tennessee Constitutional Convention and in 1796 became the state's first U.S. senator. December 17, 1798 - Senate exercised its "sole power to try all impeachments," as granted by the Constitution, and initiated a Senate trial against Blount. As vice president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was president of the Senate and thus presided over the impeachment trial proceedings. After two months, Jefferson and the Senate decided to dismiss the charges against Blount, determining that the Senate had no jurisdiction over its own members beyond its constitutional right to expel members by a two-thirds majority vote. By the time of the dismissal, Blount had already been elected as a senator to the Tennessee state legislature, where he was appointed speaker. The constitutional conundrum of conducting a trial of an impeached senator has not yet been resolved.

October 21, 1797 - USS Constitution, a 44-gun U.S. Navy frigate built to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli, is launched in Boston Harbor. The vessel performed commendably during the Barbary conflicts, and in 1805 a peace treaty with Tripoli was signed on the Constitution's deck.

April 30, 1798 - The US Department of the Navy was established.

June 18, 1798 - President John Adams passes the Naturalization Act, the first of four pieces of controversial legislation known together as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Naturalization Act raised the requirements for aliens to apply for U.S. citizenship, requiring that immigrants reside in the U.S. for 14 years before becoming eligible. The earlier law had required only five years of residence before an application could be made. June 25 - Adams signed Alien Act; gave the president the authority to deport aliens during peacetime. July 6 - Adams signed Alien Enemies Act; gave him the power to deport any alien living in the U.S. with ties to U.S. wartime enemies. July 14 - signed Sedition Act; gave Adams tremendous power to define "treasonable activity" including "any false, scandalous and malicious writing." The intended targets of the Sedition Act were newspaper, pamphlet and broadside publishers who printed what he considered to be libelous articles aimed primarily at his administration. Abigail Adams urged her husband to pass the Sedition Act, calling his opponents "criminal" and "vile" - most distressing to staunch First Amendment advocates; objected to the fact that "treasonable activity" was vaguely defined, was defined at the discretion of the president and would be punished by heavy fines and imprisonment. 1800 - Citing Adams’s abuse of presidential powers and threats to free speech, Jefferson’s party took control of Congress and the presidency.

July 11, 1798 - The U.S. Marine Corps was created by an act of Congress.

July 14, 1798 - Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the U.S. government. 

July 16, 1798 - U.S. Public Health Service forms and U.S. Marine Hospital authorized.

July 21, 1798 - The Battle of the Pyramids took place, in which Napoleon, soon after his invasion of Egypt, defeated an army of some 60,000 Mamelukes.

March 2, 1799 - Congress standardizes U.S. weights and measures.

April 24, 1800 - The Library of Congress was established. President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of "such books as may be necessary for the use of congress." The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library's first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the 3,000-volume Library of Congress.

May 15, 1800 - President John Adams orders the federal government (only about 125 federal employees) to pack up and leave Philadelphia and set up shop in the nation’s new capital in Washington, DC; June 11, 1800 - Philadelphia officially ceased to serve as the nation’s capital.

June 3, 1800 - John Adams, the second president of the United States, becomes the first president to reside in Washington, DC, when he takes up residence at Union Tavern in Georgetown. November 1 - the president was welcomed into the White House. The next day, Adams wrote to his wife about their new home: "I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but wise men ever rule under this roof!" Soon after, Abigail Adams arrived at the White House; November 17 - U.S. Congress convened for the first time at the U.S. Capitol.

October 1, 1800 - Spain ceded Louisiana to France in a secret treaty of San Ildefonso.

November 1, 1800 - John Adams takes up residence at the newly constructed President’s House, the original name for what is known today as the White House; first President to live there; had been living in temporary digs at Tunnicliffe’s City Hotel near the half-finished Capitol building; lived there for only five months.

January 20, 1801 - John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; February 4, 1801 - sworn in as chief justice.

February 11, 1801 - Because Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr had tied, the election went to the House of Representatives, which began voting on the issue; developed into a major constitutional crisis when Federalists in the lame-duck Congress threw their support behind Burr. Jefferson needed a majority of nine states to win, but in the first ballot had only eight states, with Burr winning six states and Maryland and Virginia;

February 17, 1801 - After one tie vote in the Electoral College and 35 indecisive ballot votes in the House of Representatives, Vice President Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States over his running mate, Aaron Burr; election, which ended just 15 days before a new president was to be inaugurated, exposed major problems in the presidential electoral process set forth by the framers of the U.S. Constitution

February 26, 1801 - The District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

Catherine Drinker Bowen (1950). John Adams and the American Revolution. (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 699 p.). John, 1735-1826; United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783.

Richard Brookhiser (2002). America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918. (New York, NY: Free Press, p.). Adams family; Adams, John, 1735-1826; Adams, John, 1735-1826 --Family; Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848; Adams, Charles Francis, 1807-1886; Adams, Henry, 1838-1918; Presidents--United States--Biography; Statesmen--United States--Biography; Historians--United States--Biography.

John Patrick Diggins (2003). John Adams. (New York, NY: Times Books, 200 p.). Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center (City University of New York). Adams, John, 1735-1826; Presidents--United States--Biography; United States--Politics and government--1797-1801.

Joseph J. Ellis (1993). Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams. (New York, NY: Norton, 277 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826; United States--Politics and government--1789-1809. Adams, the sardonic social critic.

John E. Ferling (1992). John Adams: A Life. (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 535 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826; Presidents -- United States -- Biography.

compiled by John E. Ferling (1994). John Adams: A Bibliography. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 222 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826 -- Bibliography; United States -- Politics and government -- 1797-1801 -- Bibliography.

James Grant (2005). John Adams: Party of One. (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 544 p.). Editor (Grant's Interest Rate Observer). Adams, John, 1735-1826; Presidents--United States--Biography. 

Zoltan Haraszti (1952). John Adams & The Prophets of Progress. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 362 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826; Political science--History.

Eds. Margaret A Hogan and C. James Taylor (2007). My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 508 p.). Managing Editor of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. C. James Taylor is Editor in Chief of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Adams, John, 1735-1826 --Correspondence; Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818 --Correspondence; Presidents--United States--Correspondence; Presidents’ spouses--United States--Correspondence; Married people--United States--Correspondence; Couples--United States--Correspondence; Love letters--United States; American letters; United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783--Sources; United States--History--1783-1815--Sources. 289 letters, from 1762 to 1801;  the most significant correspondence--and one of the most intriguing and inspiring partnerships--in American history.

James H. Hutson (1980). John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution. (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 199 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826; United States--Foreign relations--1775-1783.

David G. McCullough (2001). John Adams. (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 751 p.). Cultural Historian. Adams, John, 1735-1826; Presidents--United States--Biography; United States--Politics and government--1775-1783; United States--Politics and government--1783-1809.

Page Smith (1962). John Adams. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 2 vols., 1170 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826. Contents v.1. 1735-1784.--v.2. 1784-1826. Winner of Bancroft Prize for Historical Writing.

C. Bradley Thompson (1998). John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 340 p.). Adams, John, 1735-1826 --Views on liberty; Adams, John, 1735-1826 --Political and social views; Liberty; Constitutional history--United States. Series: American political thought.

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