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Battle of Little Bighorn
Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and the 7th Calvary were sent into the Black Hills as an advance guard for a larger force. Custer’s men approached a camp along a river marked on Custer’s map as Little Bighorn, and they found that the influx of Sioux, Cheyenne, and other allies had swelled the population of the village far beyond Custer’s estimation. Consequently, Custer’s 7th Cavalry was vastly outnumbered, and he and 268 of his men were killed. -
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 heralded a new era of labor conflict in the United States. That year, rail lines slashed workers’ wages which made workers from Baltimore to St. Louis strike, shutting down railroad traffic—the nation’s economic lifeblood—across the country. -
The Invention of Electricity
In 1878 Edison announced a new and ambitious line of research and development— electric power and lighting. By late fall 1879, Edison exhibited his system of power generation and electrical light for reporters and investors. -
The Immigration Act
This act denied admission to people who were not able to support themselves and those, such as paupers, people with mental illnesses, or convicted criminals, who might otherwise threaten the security of the nation. President Arthur signed it into law on August 3, 1882 -
Buffalo Bill's Wild West
William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody was the first to recognize the broad national appeal of the stock “characters” of the American West—cowboys, Indians, sharpshooters, cavalrymen, and rangers—and put them all together into a single massive traveling extravaganza. Operating out of Omaha, Nebraska, Buffalo Bill launched his touring show in 1883. -
Creation of the American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was a national federation of labor unions founded by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor union. It was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century. -
The Dawes General Allotment Act
This act splintered Native American reservations into individual family homesteads. Each head of a Native family was to be allotted 160 acres, the typical size of a claim that any settler could establish on federal lands under the provisions of the Homestead Act. Americans touted the Dawes Act as an uplifting humanitarian reform, but it upended Native lifestyles and left Native nations without sovereignty over their lands. -
Motion Pictures Pattened
After seeing the success of the phonograph, Edison decided to develop an instrument which does for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear. -
Washington Admitted to the Union
Washington was the 42nd state to be admitted to the United States. -
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890
This act aimed to limit anticompetitive practices, such as those institutionalized in cartels and monopolistic corporations. It declared that not all monopolies were illegal, only those that “unreasonably” stifled free trade. -
United States declares War on Spain
When urgent negotiations failed to produce a mutually agreeable settlement, Congress officially declared war on April 25. -
The Anti-Imperialist League
They protested American imperial actions and articulated a platform that decried foreign subjugation and upheld the rights of all to self-governance. -
The Open Door Policy
In 1899, secretary of state John Hay articulated the Open Door Policy, which called for all Western powers to have equal access to Chinese markets. Hay feared that other imperial powers planned to carve China into spheres of influence. It was in the economic interest of American business to maintain China for free trade.