• david wilmot introduces the wilmot proviso

  • free soil party is founded

  • zach taylor elected president

  • california seeks admission to the union

  • compromise of 1850

  • fugitive slave act

  • Zachary Taylor dies while in office

  • Sioux sign Treaty of Traverse des Sioux

  • Congress passes the Land Act of 1851

  • uncle tom's cabin published

  • franklin pierce elected president

  • Gadsden Purchase

  • congress passes kansas- nebraska act

  • republican party founded

  • Abraham Lincollincoln gives a speech condemning the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

  • preston brooks assaults charles sumner on senate floor

  • dread scott case

  • First elevator installed

  • james Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable

  • john brown raids harper's ferry