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•February 3, 1870: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave the right to vote to black males, became law when the required number of states ratified it.
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•October 12, 1870: Robert E. Lee, Confederate general in the Civil War, died at the age of 63 at Lexington, Virginia.
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•October 8, 1871: The Great Chicago Fire broke out. It destroyed much of the city of Chicago, and a persistent rumor was that it was caused by Mrs. O'Leary's cow.
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The first child of Ambrose and Mary, a boy named Day, was born in 1872.
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Not long into their stay in England 1872, the Bierces moved to Bristol -- in part because the damp and fog of London had exacerbated Bierce's asthma, a health condition that plagued him his entire life.
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•March 1, 1872: Yellowstone National Park was established as the first National Park in the United States.
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In March 1872, Bierce resigned his position at the News-Letter in order that he and Mary might enjoy an extended honeymoon in England.
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•November 5, 1872: President Ulysses S. Grant is reelected, defeating legendary newspaper editor turned candidate Horace Greeley.
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•September 1873: A stock market crashed sets off the Panic of 1873, one of the great financial panics of the 19th century.
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While in England, Bierce published his first books: The Fiend's Delight
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•March 8, 1874: Millard Fillmore, former president of the United States, died at the age of 74.
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Cobwebs From an Empty Skull in 1874
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A second son, Leigh, arrived in 1874.
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•July 31, 1875: Andrew Johnson, who became president following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, died at the age of 66.
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The Bierces ended the tour abroad in the fall of 1875, returning to San Francisco.
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•March 10, 1876: Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful telephone call, saying, "Watson, come here, I need you."
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•June 25, 1876: General George Armstrong Custer, commander of the 7th Cavalry, is killed, along with more than 200 of his men, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
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Having returned to San Francisco, Bierce was soon the father of a third child, Helen
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•January 4, 1877: Cornelius Vanderbilt, known as "The Commodore," died in New York City. He was by far the wealthiest person in the United States.
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•September 5, 1877: Crazy Horse was killed at an army base in Kansas.
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He resumed work as a writer, and in 1877 accepted a position as the editor of Argonaut.
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At Argonaut, Bierce began his famous column "Prattle." Like his older "Town Crier" column, "Prattle" provided him with a forum for publishing his own poetry, quips, anecdotes, stories, and essays. He also used the space to identify and excoriate those men and women whose words, actions, and writing he objected to on moral or aesthetic grounds
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•February 19, 1878: Thomas A. Edison patented the phonograph.
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•April 12, 1878: William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, the legendary head of Tammany Hall, died in jail in New York City at the age of 55.
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•Summer 1878: The head of the Statue of Liberty was displayed in a park in Paris during an international exhibition.
