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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1853 | - 4 Mar 1853 —1857: Franklin Pierce is inaugurated as the 14th president (March 4). Gadsden Purchase treaty is signed; U.S. acquires border territory from Mexico for $10 million (Dec. 30).
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| 2 | 1857 | - 1857: George Pullman invents the Pullman Sleeping Car for train travel
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| 3 | 1857 | - 1857 : In the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court denies African Americans the rights of American citizenship
- 4 Mar 1857 —1861: James Buchanan president of the USA 1857-1861
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| 4 | 1858 | - 1858 : Jean Lenoir invents an internal combustion engine
- 1858 : Overland mail service by stagecoach begins, connecting the east and west coasts of the United States.
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| 5 | 1858 | - 1858: Hamilton Smith patents the rotary washing machine
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| 6 | 1859 | - 1859 : John Brown, an abolitionist, leads an attack on the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.
- 1859 : The drilling of an oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, changes the way most Americans light their homes, as kerosene made from the oil replaces whale oil and candles.
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| 7 | 1860 | - 1860 —1861: Pony Express mail service begins. Only lasts one year.
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| 8 | 1860 | - 20 Dec 1860: South Carolina secedes from the Union (Dec. 20).
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| 9 | 1861 | - 1861 : Elisha Otis patents elevator safety brakes, creating a safer elevator
- 1861 : Linus Yale invents the Yale lock or cylinder lock
- 4 Mar 1861 —1865: Abraham Lincoln president of the USA 1861-1865
- 12 Apr 1861 : USA Civil War begins 12 April 1861, battle of Ft. Sumter.The American Civil War begins when Confederate troops capture Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.
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| 10 | 1861 | - 2 Feb 1861: Texas secedes (March 2).
- 8 Feb 1861: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana secede (Jan.). Confederate States of America is established (Feb. 8).
- 9 Feb 1861: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederacy (Feb. 9).
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| 11 | 1862 | - 1862 : Alexander Parkes invents the first man-made plastic
- 1862 : Dr. Richard Gatling patents the machine gun
- 1862 : Homestead Act offers 160 acres of public land in the western United States to settlers willing to settle on the land for 5 years.
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| 12 | 1863 | - 1863 : Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln signs law declaring freedom for enslaved persons living in states under the control of the Confederacy.
- 1 Jul 1863 —3 Jun 1863: The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania marks a turning point in the Civil War, as Confederate forces retreat to the South after losing this important battle.
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| 13 | 1863 | - 19 Nov 1863: President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address
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| 14 | 1864 | - 1864 : General Sherman and 62,000 Union soldiers sweep a 60-mile wide path of destruction in Georgia, severely weakening the Confederacy.
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| 15 | 1865 | - 9 Apr 1865 : USA Civil War ends when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
- 14 Apr 1865 : Abraham Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth on 14 Apr 1865 and dies the next day
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| 16 | 1865 | - 15 Apr 1865—1869: Lincoln is assassinated (April 14) by John Wilkes Booth in Washington, DC, and is succeeded by his vice president, Andrew Johnson.
- 6 Dec 1865: Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, prohibiting slavery
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| 17 | 1866 | - 1866 : Englishmen Robert Whitehead invents a torpedo
- 1866 : J. Osterhoudt patents the tin can with a key opener
- 1866 : Alfred Nobel invents dynamite
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| 18 | 1867 | - 1867 : Christopher Scholes invents the first practical and modern typewriter
- 1867 : The United States purchases the Alaska territory from Russia
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| 19 | 1868 | - 1868: J P Knight invents traffic lights
- 24 Feb 1868: President Johnson is impeached by the House of Representatives (Feb. 24), but he is acquitted at his trial in the Senate (May 26).
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| 20 | 1868 | - 1868 : George Westinghouse invents air brakes
- 1868 : Robert Mushet invents tungsten steel
- 9 Jul 1868 : The 14th Amendment grants rights and priviledges of American citizenship to African Americans.
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| 21 | 1869 | - 1869 : First transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory Point, Utah, providing continuous railroad transportation across the entire United States.
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| 22 | 1869 | - 4 Mar 1869—1877: Ulysses Grant president of the USA 1869-1877
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| 23 | 1870 | - 1870 : The 15th amendment guarantees that no male citizen will be deprived of the right to vote because of race, color or previous condition of servitude
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| 24 | 1871 | - 1871 : Great Chicago Fire. A fire destroys the city of Chicago, Illinois.
- 1871 : The first professional baseball association, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players, is organized.
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| 25 | 1872 | - 1872 : A.M. Ward issues the first mail-order catalog
- 1872 : J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill
- 1872 : Yellowstone National Park is established for the enjoyment of the public
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| 26 | 1873 | - 1873 : Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire
- 1873 : The United States experiences an economic depression, as over 5,000 companies go out of business after a stock market panic.
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| 27 | 1873 | - 4 Mar 1873: Grant's second inauguration
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| 28 | 1874 | - 1874 : American, C. Goodyear, Jr. invents the shoe welt stitcher
- 1874 : First American Zoo - America gets its first public zoo, the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens.
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| 29 | 1875 | - 1875 : Congress passes a Civil Rights Bill prohibiting discrimination in public places.
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| 30 | 1876 | - 1876: Nicolaus August Otto invents the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine
- 25 Jun 1876: Gen. George Custer and his soldiers are killed in a battle with the Sioux Indians at the Little Big Horn in Montana
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| 31 | 1876 | - 1876 : Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
- 1876 : Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper
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| 32 | 1877 | - 1877 : Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph or tin foil phonograph
- 1877 : Edward Muybridge invents the first moving pictures
- 1877 : President Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws the last federal soldiers from the South, leaving the rights of African Americans unprotected.
- 1877 : Nez Perce war with the United States ends when federal troops capture Chief Joseph and his tribe.
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| 33 | 1877 | - 5 Mar 1877—1881: Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated as the 19th president
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| 34 | 1878 | - 1878 : Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb
- 1878 : Thomas Edison invents the first practical incandescent electric light at Menlo Park, New Jersey.
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| 35 | 1879 | - 1879 : Frank Woolworth opens his first successful five-and-ten cent store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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| 36 | 1880 | - 1880 : Englishmen, John Milne invents the modern seismograph
- 1880 : The British Perforated Paper Company invents a form of toilet paper
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| 37 | 1881 | - 1881 : David Houston patents the roll film for cameras
- 1881 : Alexander Graham Bell invents the first crude metal detector
- 1881 : Edward Leveaux patents the automatic player piano
- 1881 : Booker T. Washington becomes the first president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
- 4 Mar 1881 —19 Sep 1881: James Garfield president of the USA 1881. James Garfield wounded by assassin's bullet on 3 Jul 1881 and dies 19 Sep 1881
- 19 Sep 1881 —1885: Chester A. Arthur president of the USA 1881-1885. Chester A. Arthur, vice president under James Garfield, sworn in as president upon the death of Garfield
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| 38 | 1882 | - 1882 : Chinese Exclusion Act - Widespread resentment against immigrant Chinese laborers results in suspending Chinese immigration for ten years
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| 39 | 1882 | - 18 Nov 1882: The United States and Canada substitute standardized time zones for local time to make it easier to coordinate railroad schedules.
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| 40 | 1883 | - 1883 : United States Supreme Court rules the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited discrimination in public places, to be unconstitutional.
- 1883 : Brooklyn Bridge, hailed as the eighth wonder of the world, opens.
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| 41 | 1884 | - 1884 : James Ritty invents the first working, mechanical cash register
- 1884 : Charles Parson patents the steam turbine
- 1884 : Lewis Edson Waterman invents the first practical fountain pen
- 1884 : Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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| 42 | 1884 | - 1884: George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film
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| 43 | 1885 | - 1885 : Karl Benz invents the first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine
- 1885 : Harim Maxim invents a machine gun
- 1885 : Gottlieb Daimler invents the first gas-engined motorcycle
- 1885 : Washington monument is dedicated in the nation's capitol.
- 1885 : P.T. Barnum's famous circus elephant, Jumbo, is killed in a train collision.
- 4 Mar 1885 —1889: Grover Cleveland president of the USA 1885-1889
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Oldham Family History
1857 - 1885 (28 years)
