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Thomas Jefferson vs. Aaron Burr.
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The U.S. capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, DC.
November 17. The U.S. Congress meets in Washington, DC, for the first time later that year. -
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United States agrees to pay France $15 million for the Louisiana Territory, which extends west from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and comprises about 830,000 sq mi. As a result, the U.S. nearly doubles in size.
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Provided the procedure for electing the President and Vice President.
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set out from St. Louis, Mo., on expedition to explore the West and find a route to the Pacific Ocean.
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Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr have a duel. Hamilton looses and died the following day.
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Act prohibiting the trade and importation of slaves.
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James Madison vs. Charles Pinckney
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U.S. declares war on Britain over British interference with American maritime shipping and westward expansion.
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Francis Scott Keys writes Star-Spangled Banner as he watches British attack on Fort McHenry at Baltimore.
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officially ending the war of 1812
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British attack New Orleans, but they had yet to hear of the treaty and Andrew Jackson defeated the British.
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also known as the Dallas Tariff, is notable as the first tariff passed by Congress with an explicit function of protecting U.S. manufactured items from overseas competition
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Second Bank of the U.S. is established in Philadelphia
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James Monroe v. Rufus King
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First conflict between the United States and the Seminole Indians of Florida.
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Set boundaries between U.S. and British North America at the 49th parallel.
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First major depression because of poor banking policies.
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Spain agrees to cede Florida to the United States.
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In an effort to maintain the balance between free and slave states, Maine (formerly part of Massachusetts) is admitted as a free state so that Missouri can be admitted as a slave state; except for Missouri, slavery is prohibited in the Louisiana Purchase lands north of latitude 36°30'.
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an enslaved African American carpenter who had purchased his freedom, plans a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot is discovered, and Vesey and 34 coconspirators are hanged.
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In his annual address to Congress, President Monroe declares that the American continents are henceforth off-limits for further colonization by European powers.
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There were five republican candidates. John Quincy Adams wins
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Erie Canal, linking the Hudson River to Lake Erie, is opened for traffic.
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Construction is begun on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first public railroad in the U.S.
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Andrew Jackson won with John C. Calhoun as his vice president.
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Joseph Smith organizes the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints
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President Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, which authorizes the forced removal of Native Americans living in the eastern part of the country to lands west of the Mississippi River.
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begins publishing the Liberator, a weekly paper that advocates the complete abolition of slavery. He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist movement.
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an enslaved African American preacher, leads the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of about 80 followers launch a bloody, day-long rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged. As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws.
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Stated that tariffs of 1828 were null and void. They prohibited the collection of the duties after February 1, 1833. They also threatened succession if federal officials tried to collect them.
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This machined invented by Cyrus Hall McCormick brought power to grain harvesting.
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Second conflict between the United States and the Seminole Indians of Florida
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The fight for Texas between America and Mexico
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Martin Van Buren v. William H. Harrison
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Texan defenders of the Alamo are all killed during siege by the Mexicans
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Texas declares its independence from Mexico.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson writes The American Scholar
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More than 15,000 Cherokee Indians are forced to march from Georgia to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Approximately 4,000 die from starvation and disease along the “Trail of Tears.”
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Activists in Warsaw, New York, organized the antislavery Liberty Party
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William Henry Harrison wins election
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William Henry Harrison is inaugurated as the ninth president. But dies one month later and is succeeded by VP, John Tyler
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Henry Clay v. James K. Polk
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The term “manifest destiny” appears for the first time in a magazine article by John L. O'Sullivan. It expresses the belief held by many white Americans that the United States is destined to expand across the continent.
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Tyler at last extended an official offer to Texas
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The republic accepted Tyler's offer, becoming the twenty-eighth state.
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President Polk secretly dispatched John Slidell to Mexico City to purchase the Nueces strip along with large sections of New Mexico and California.
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introduced by Democratic representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, attempts to ban slavery in territory gained in the Mexican War The proviso is blocked by Southerners, but continues to enflame the debate over slavery.
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Mexico recognizes Rio Grande as new boundary with Texas and, for $15 million, agrees to cede territory comprising present-day California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.
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U.S. declares war on Mexico in effort to gain California and other territory in Southwest.
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Oregon Treaty fixes U.S.-Canadian border at 49th parallel; U.S. acquires Oregon territory.
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War concludes with signing of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
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Zachary Taylor wins
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James W. Marshall, a contractor hired by John Sutter, discovered gold on Sutter’s sawmill land in the Sacramento Valley area of the California Territory.
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Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective and celebrated members of the Underground Railroad.
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was also part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.
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Franklin Pierce v. Winfield Scott
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Third and final conflict between the United States and the Seminole Indians of Florida
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James Buchanan v. John C. Frémont
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Abraham Lincoln v. John C. Breckinridge
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Mississippi seceded. Later in the month, the states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana also all left the Union. By early February, Texas had also joined the newly seceded states.
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Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan meant to slowly squeeze the South dry of its resources, blocking all coastal ports and inland waterways to prevent the importation of goods or the export of cotton.
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The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, a federal outpost in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, marks the first military engagement of the American Civil War. After some 34 hours of bombardment, the fort surrenders on April 13, and Federal troops evacuate the fort the next day.
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the bloodiest war in the nation’s history, resulted in approximately 750,000 deaths. African Americans, both enslaved and free, pressed the issue of emancipation and nurtured this transformation.
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or the First Battle of Manassas, takes place near Manassas in northern Virginia and ends in a Confederate rout of Union forces.
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Designed by Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson, the U.S. Navy's first ironclad, USS Monitor, was commissioned at New York City, New York. An innovative warship, she had a thick-armored round turret which was twenty-feet in diameter.
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In the first battle of ironclad warships, the Merrimack (which had been rechristened by the Confederates as the Virginia) clashes with the Union Monitor.
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in southwestern Tennessee, Union forces rally from almost near defeat to drive back the Confederate army. Both sides are immobilized for the next three weeks because of the heavy casualties, including more than 13,000 on the Union side and more than 11,000 on the Confederate side.
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Maryland, is regarded as a Union victory in an otherwise bleak year for Union forces in the East. However, the casualties set a grisly record. In what marks the bloodiest single day of the war, the South loses 10,316 troops, and the North suffers casualties of 12,401.
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The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
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In the western theater of the war, General Ulysses S. Grant lays siege to the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The victory leaves the Mississippi River completely under Union control and splits the Confederacy in half.
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Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee meet Union forces at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle rages over three days, involving heavy artillery duels and high casualties on both sides. The battle is considered a major turning point in the eastern theater.
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General William T. Sherman captures Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman adopts a strategy of “total war” on his march through Georgia and the Carolinas. His troops destroy crops, supplies, railroads, bridges, and many small industries to weaken support for the war.
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General Lee is surrounded by Grant’s forces in Virginia. He finally surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9.
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President Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., by John Wilkes Booth. The president dies the next day. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes president. The death of Lincoln will make reconciliation between the North and South more difficult.
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This final battle of the war.