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United States payed $15 million to receive the territory which extends west from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Napoleon, the leader of France, was in financial trouble due to war and was willing to give that huge chunk of land for a very little price
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Lewis and Clark set out to explore the unknown territories of the Louisiana purchase.
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U.S. declared war on Britain over Britian's interference and prevetion of American shipping to Europe and over their interference of America's westward expansion.
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Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons, so the Spanish government decided to cede the territory to the United States in exchange for settling the boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Spanish Texas.
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Construction began on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This is the first public railroad in the U.S. It was a key factor in America's westward expansion and it made trade much easier and less expensive.
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Mexican War took place in America's effort to gain California and another territory in the Southwest. It stemmed from the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the U.S. in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River.
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Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill in California. After news spread that gold had been discovered there, thousands of Americans dropped everything they had and moved to California. By 1849, it was the peak of the Gold Rush, thus, creating the name forty-niners for the many miners that searched for gold there. This event greatly increased America's westward expansion.
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The Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla, which took effect on June 8, 1854. Gadsden's purchase was made for $10,000,000 from Mexico.
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Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and most remembered presidents of America, was elected on this day. His election spurred on the most brutal and deadliest war in American history. Soon after he was elected, South Carolina seceded from the Union and was then followed by the Civil War.
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11 states had seceded from the U.S. and the Confederate states were formed. Jefferson Davis was elected as president of them a day later.
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The Civil War was the conflict between the North (the Union) and the South (the Confederacy) over the expansion of slavery into western states and over the preservation of the Union. This war was had a higher fatality rate out of all of the wars fought in America combined. This sad event shaped our government for the better and opened the eyes of Americans to the brutality of slavery.
