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Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful telephone call, saying, "Watson, come here, I need you."
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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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The United States celebrated its centennial with celebrations in cities and towns across the country.
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Wild Bill Hickok, gunfighter and lawman, was shot and killed while playing cards in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. (Fun fact: the card hand he was holding later became known in the game as "Dead Man's Hand")
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The first crossing of the unfinished Brooklyn Bridge was accomplished by its master mechanic, E.F. Farrington, riding on a wire strung between its towers.
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The United States presidential election of 1876 was disputed and became the most controversial American election until the election of 2000.
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An electoral commission was formed to settle the disputed presidential election of 1876 results in the Compromise of 1877. Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the election, and Reconstruction was effectively brought to an end.
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Sitting Bull led followers into Canada to escape the U.S. Army, and Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. troops.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt, known as "The Commodore," died in New York City. He was by far the wealthiest person in the United States. (I love his grandkids' houses in Asheville and Newport! They're beautiful!!)
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Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated as president, and comes into office under a cloud of suspicion, being called "His Fraudulency."
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A strike in West Virginia set off the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which spread nationwide and spurred violent clashes in American cities.
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Crazy Horse was killed at an army base in Kansas.
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During the summer of 1878, the head of the Statue of Liberty was displayed in a park in Paris during an international exhibition.
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Thomas A. Edison patented the phonograph, which would rank as one of his most important inventions.
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Sarah J. Hale, a magazine editor who urged President Lincoln to make Thanksgiving an official holiday, died at the age of 90.
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The word "boycott" enters the English language when tenant farmers in Ireland organize and refuse to pay landlord agent Captain Charles Boycott. The term quickly spreads to America, and after appearing in newspapers, its usage becomes widespread.
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The French-American Union announces that enough money has been raised to complete the construction of the Statue of Liberty, although further funding will be required to construct the pedestal on which it will sit in New York Harbor.
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Inventor Thomas A. Edison uses electric Christmas lights for the first time, hanging them outside his lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
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James Garfield defeats Winfield Hancock in the U.S. Presidential election.
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Notorious Australian outlaw Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne, Australia.
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Pogroms began in Russia after Jews are blamed for the assassination of Czar Nicholas II. When the refugees from the Russian pogroms arrive in New York City, poet Emma Lazarus is inspired write her poem, "The New Colossus."
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John Sutter, owner of the sawmill where a gold discovery launched the California Gold Rush, dies in Washington, D.C.
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James Garfield is inaugurated as President of the United States.
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Alexander II, son of Nicholas I, is assassinated.
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President James Garfield is shot and wounded by Charles Guiteau at a Washington, D.C. train station.
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Outlaw Billy the Kid is shot and killed by lawman Pat Garrett in the New Mexico territory. (He's my favourite Wild West outlaw ;-;)
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Following the death of James Garfield, Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes President of the United States.
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President James Garfield succumbs to the gunshot wound he'd received 11 weeks earlier. Vice President Chester A. Arthur succeeds him as President
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The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place in Tombstone, Arizona, pitting Doc Holliday along with Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt Earp against Tom and Frank McLaury, Billy and Ike Clanton, and Billy Claiborne.
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The first Christmas tree with electric lights is created by Edward Johnson, an employee of Thomas Edison. The tree is notable enough to be written about in newspapers. Within decades, electric Christmas tree lights became commonplace in America.
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Outlaw Jesse James is shot and killed by Robert Ford.
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Charles Darwin, author of "On the Origin of Species", dies in England at the age of 73.
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Influential American author and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson dies at the age of 78.
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The first commemoration of Labor Day is held in New York City when 10,000 workers hold a labor march.
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Photographer Alexander Gardner, who took notable photographs of the Civil War, dies at the age of 61. His photographs of Antietam, displayed for the public in late 1862, changed the way the public thought of warfare. (I'm like 90% sure this was the guy who dragged the corpse of a solider around Gettysburg and took pictures at various spots...)
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Philosopher Karl Marx dies at the age of 64.
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The American Red Cross is incorporated by Clara Barton.
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After more than a decade of construction, the Brooklyn Bridge is opened with an enormous celebration.
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General Tom Thumb, famous entertainer discovered and promoted by the great showman Phineas T. Barnum, dies at the age of 45. The diminutive man, born as Charles Stratton, was a show business phenomenon who performed for President Lincoln and Queen Victoria and was Barnum's greatest attraction.
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The enormous volcano at Krakatoa erupts, blowing itself apart and throwing enormous quantities of volcanic dust into the atmosphere.
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The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty's pedestal is placed on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
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Despite a paternity scandal, Grover Cleveland defeats James G. Blaine (whose gaffe about "rum, Romanism, and rebellion" likely cost him the presidency) in the Presidential election of 1884.
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Mark Twain publishes "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
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Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as President of the United States.
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The disassembled Statue of Liberty arrives in New York aboard a French freighter.
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Former U.S. President and hero of the Civil War Ulysses S. Grant dies at the age of 63. His enormous funeral procession in New York City signals the end of an era.
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Labor Day celebrations are held in cities across America, with tens of thousands of workers participating in marches and other commemorative events.
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George B. McClellan, the Union commander at the Battle of Antietam who challenged President Lincoln in the election of 1864, dies at the age of 58.
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The Haymarket Square Riot erupts in Chicago when a bomb is tossed into a mass meeting called in support of striking workers.
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American poet Emily Dickinson dies at the age of 55.
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President Grover Cleveland weds Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony, becoming the only president to be married in the executive mansion.
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The Statue of Liberty is dedicated in New York Harbor.
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Former U.S. President Chester A. Arthur dies in New York City at the age of 57.
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic detective Sherlock Holmes makes his debut in a story published in Beeton's Christmas Annual magazine.
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Britain celebrates the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, commemorating the 50th year of her reign.
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Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, whose sensational 1850 American tour was promoted by P. T. Barnum, dies at the age of 67.
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Poet Emma Lazarus, whose inspirational poem "The New Colossus" is inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as an anthem to immigration, dies in New York City at the age of 38.
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The Great Blizzard of 1888 strikes the East Coast of the United States.
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Jack the Ripper's first victim is discovered in London.
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President Grover Cleveland loses his bid for reelection to Benjamin Harrison. (You'll get 'em next time, Grover!)
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Pierre de Coubertin, who would go on to organize the modern Olympic games, visits the campus of Yale University to study its athletic programs.
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Benjamin Harrison takes the oath of office as President and delivers an uplifting inaugural address.
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A poorly constructed dam in Pennsylvania bursts open, resulting in the devastating Johnstown Flood.
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Nellie Bly, star reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, departs on her 72-day race around the world. Bly, who set out to circumnavigate the entire globe in less than 80 days in order to beat the record of Phileas Fogg, the fictional protagonist of Victorian novelist Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days," succeeds, closing out her adventure via a cross-country train trip from San Francisco to New York City.
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Former President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis dies at the age of 81.
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President Benjamin Harrison holds a festive Christmas celebration for his family at the White House, after which newspaper accounts regale the public with tales of lavish gifts and decorations—including a Christmas tree.
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The Sherman Anti-Trust Act became law in the United States. It led to the regulation of competition between enterprises.
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John C. Fremont, an American explorer and political figure, died in New York City at the age of 77.
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Artist Vincent Van Gogh died in France at the age of 37 after shooting himself two days earlier.
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At the urging of John Muir, The U.S. Congress designated Yosemite a National Park.
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Sitting Bull, the legendary Sioux leader, died at the age of 59 in South Dakota. He was killed while being arrested in the federal government's crackdown on the Ghost Dance movement.
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The Wounded Knee Massacre took place in South Dakota when U.S. Cavalry troopers fired on Lakota Sioux who had gathered. The killing of hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children essentially marked the end of Native American resistance to white rule in the West.
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William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union Civil War general famous for his "March to the Sea", died in New York City at the age of 71.
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The St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City began using the traditional route up Fifth Avenue.
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American showman Phineas T. Barnum died in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the age of 80.
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Carnegie Hall opened in New York City.
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The character Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, appeared in The Strand magazine for the first time.
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Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, died in New York City at the age of 72. At the time of his death he was not well remember for his classic novel about whaling, but more for earlier books set in the South Seas.
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One of the richest men in America, financier Russell Sage, was nearly blown to bits in a bizarre dynamite attack in his Manhattan office.
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American poet Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey at the age of 72.
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Writer and naturalist John Muir founded the Sierra Club. Muir's campaigning for conservation would exert an influence on American life in the 20th century.
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The Homestead Steel Strike in western Pennsylvania turned into a ferocious day-long battle between Pinkerton men and townspeople.
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Andrew Borden and his wife were murdered in Fall River, Massachusetts and his daughter Lizzie Borden was accused of the gruesome crime. (There's a creepy children's rhyme to this, but I can't remember it...)
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Grover Cleveland won the U.S. presidential election, becoming the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
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Thomas A. Edison finished building his first motion picture studio.
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A decline in the New York stock market triggered the Panic of 1893, which led to an economic depression second only to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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The British public was outraged when Arthur Conan Doyle published a story in which Sherlock Holmes apparently died.
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Rutherford B. Hayes, who became president following the disputed election of 1876, died in Ohio at the age of 70.
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Grover Cleveland was inaugurated as president of the United States for the second time.
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The 1893 World's Fair, known as the Columbian Exposition, opened in Chicago.
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Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murder of her father and step-mother's murders.
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The U.S. Congress designated the first Monday of September as a legal holiday, Labor Day, to mark the contributions of labour, in part as a peace offering to the labour movement following the crackdown on the Pullman Strike.
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The Pullman Strike began, and spread throughout the summer before being put down by federal troops.
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Coxey's Army, a march to protest unemployment that was largely the result of the Panic of 1893, departed from Ohio on its way to Washington, D.C.
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Coxey's Army reached Washington, D.C. and its leaders were arrested the next day. The demands of Jacob Coxey, which focused on great government intervention in the economy, would eventually move into the mainstream.
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Pierre de Coubertin organized a meeting which led to the creation of the International Olympic Committee.
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President Grover Cleveland arranged for a White House Christmas tree lit with Edison electric bulbs.
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Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, arranged in his will for his estate to fund the Nobel Prize.
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Abolitionist author Frederick Douglass died in Washington, D.C. at the age of 77.
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Future president Theodore Roosevelt became president of the New York City police board, effectively becoming the police commissioner. His efforts to reform the police department became legendary and heightened his public profile.
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The first modern Olympic games, the idea of Pierre de Coubertin, are held in Athens, Greece.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" principle of Jim Crow laws in the segregated American South is legal.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, died in Hartford, Connecticut at the age of 85.
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William McKinley was elected president of the United States, defeating William Jennings Bryan.
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Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and benefactor of the Nobel Prize, died in Italy at the age of 63.
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The Klondike Gold Rush began in Alaska.
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William McKinley was inaugurated as president of the United States.
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The American battleship U.S.S. Maine exploded in the harbor at Havana, Cuba, a mysterious event that will lead to the United States going to war with Spain.
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The United States declared war on Spain.
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At the Battle of Manila Bay, an American fleet in the Philippines defeated a Spanish naval force.
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William Ewart Gladstone, former prime minister of Britain, died in Wales at the age of 88.
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At the Battle of San Juan Hill, Col. Theodore Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" charged Spanish positions.
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German statesman Otto von Bismarck died at the age of 88. (Ya did good Otto! Nice job uniting your people!)
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Newsboys in New York City went on strike for several weeks in a significant action related to child labor.