US HISTORY 1865-1920 timeline

  • Bessemer Process

    a method of producing high-quality steel by shooting air into molten steel to burn off carbon and other impurities.
  • Discovery of Gold in Pikes Peak

    the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region.
  • Homestead Act

    provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land.
  • Morrill Land grant act

    It granted each state 30,000 acres of western land, to be distributed by each senator and representative, and funded the construction of agricultural and mechanical schools.
  • Transcontinental r/r completed

    The First Transcontinental Railroad was built crossing the western half of America and it was pieced together between 1863 and 1869.
  • Carlisle school established

    The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened in 1879 and operated for nearly 30 years with a mission to “kill the Indian” to “save the Man.” This philosophy meant administrators forced students to speak English, wear Anglo-American clothing, and act according to U.S. values and culture.
  • Battle of little bighorn

    a momentary victory for the Lakota and Cheyenne.
  • Farmers alliance created

    sought to improve the economic conditions for farmers through the creation of cooperatives and political advocacy.
  • Chinese exclusion act

    provided an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States.
  • Edison lights up NYC

    Thomas Edison demonstrated the benefits of electric light to Wall street bankers, ushering in the age of electricity.
  • American federation of labor founded

    founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor.
  • Thomas edison invents light bulb

    By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high-resistance, incandescent electric light.
  • Interstate commerce act passed

    addressed the problem of railroad monopolies by setting guidelines for how the railroads could do business.
  • Dawes act

    authorized the President to break up reservation land, which was held in common by the members of a tribe, into small allotments to be parceled out to individuals
  • Alfred T Mahan writes his book on sea power

    stressed the interdependence of the military and commercial control of the sea and asserted that the control of seaborne commerce can determine the outcome of wars.
  • Sherman ant-trust act passed

    authorized the federal government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them.
  • Jacob Riis published his book of photos

    documenting the living conditions of the poor,
  • Wounded knee massacre

    the slaughter of approximately 150–300 Lakota Indians by United States Army troops in the area of Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota.
  • Pullman strike

    In protest, Pullman workers walked off the job on May 11, 1894. The American Railway Union agreed to assist Pullman workers. Switchmen who were members of the ARU refused to handle Pullman cars, which disrupted the rail network. This initial boycott led to widespread strikes among the nation's railroad workers.
  • Plessy v Ferguson

    Ferguson Summary. The Supreme Court ruled against an African-American man who attempted to ride in a whites-only train car in Louisiana in concluding that the Equal Protection Clause was not violated by state segregation laws which, in effect, keep the races “separate but equal” in public accommodations.
  • Holden v hardy

    is a US labor law case in which the US Supreme Court held a limitation on working time for miners and smelters as constitutional.
  • Spanish American War begins

    April 25, 1898 the United States declared war on Spain following the sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898.
  • Hawaii is annexed

    extended U.S. territory into the Pacific and highlighted resulted from economic integration and the rise of the United States as a Pacific power.
  • Phillipines islands are annexed

    the United States annexed the Philippines, a country in Asia made up of many islands.
  • Newlands Reclamation act

    authorized the Secretary of the Interior to designate irrigation sites and to establish a reclamation fund from the sale of public lands to finance the projects.
  • Panama Canal is built

    The canal enabled ships traveling between the two oceans to avoid the lengthy circumnavigation of South America and was a boon to world commerce.
  • Sinclair’s the Jungle written

    highlighted the dangerous working and living conditions for families working in the meatpacking industry in early 20th century Chicago and focuses on an immigrant family from Lithuania
  • U-boats created

    The first German submarine, the U-1, was built
  • Lochner v New York

    the Supreme Court ruled that a New York law setting maximum working hours for bakers was unconstitutional.
  • Pure Food and drug act passed

    prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce
  • Muller V Oregon

    upheld an Oregon law limiting the workday for female wage earners to ten hours.
  • Hepner act

    regulating the immigration of aliens into this country.
  • Founding of the NAACP

    The NAACP was created in 1909 by an interracial group consisting of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others concerned with the challenges facing African Americans, especially in the wake of the 1908 Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot.
  • 17th adm

    allowing voters to cast direct votes for U.S. senators
  • Ford Motor company's first full assembly line starts

    On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile.
  • Federal Reserve act

    created a national currency and a monetary system that could respond effectively to the stresses in the banking system and create a stable financial system.
  • Beginning of the first world war

    a young Serbian patriot shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austria), in the city of Sarajevo.
  • Clayton Antitrust act

    defines unethical business practices, such as price fixing and monopolies, and upholds various rights of labor.
  • Lusitania Sunk

    the German submarine (U-boat) U-20 torpedoed and sank the Lusitania, a swift-moving British cruise liner traveling from New York to Liverpool, England
  • US enters WWI

    the toll in sunken U.S. merchant ships and civilian casualties rising, Wilson asked Congress for “a war to end all wars” that would “make the world safe for democracy.”
  • Selective Service act

    authorized the Federal Government to temporarily expand the military through conscription.
  • WWI ends

    By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany. In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies' favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.
  • 18th adm

    prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquours” but not the consumption, private possession, or production for one's own consumption.
  • Fredrick Jackson Turner writes essay of settling the west

    Turner argued that the frontier had made the United States unique. Due to hardship, residents were forced to become resourceful and self-reliant.
  • 19 adm

    granted women the right to vote.
  • Immigration quota act

    limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota.
  • National origins act

    A law that severely restricted immigration by establishing a system of national quotas that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and virtually excluded Asians. The policy stayed in effect until the 1960s. Video Player is loading.
  • Statue of Liberty built

    built in France.
  • Scopes trial

    The Scopes “monkey trial” was the moniker journalist H. L. Mencken applied to the 1925 prosecution of a criminal action brought by the state of Tennessee against high school teacher John T. Scopes for violating the state's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools.