-
The 14th amendment grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States and guarantees them due process of law and that they will recieve equal protection of the laws.
-
Commanche Chief Toch-a-way tells General Philip Sheridan that he is a "good Indian," Sheridan replied: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
-
A golden spike is driven into a railroad tie at Promontory Point, Utah. This marks the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. It ws built in just over three years by 20,000 workers and had 1,775 miles of track.
-
John D. Rockefeller forms Standard Oil of Ohio. Rockefeller was 31 years old.
-
The 15th Amendment guarantees citizens the right to vote regardless of race, or previous condition of servitude.
-
Congress declares the Indian tribes will no longer be treated like independent nations. They will no longer be negotiated with.
-
Mrs. Catherine O'Leary's cow kicks over a lantern. This reults in a massive fire which kills 250 people and destroys 17,500 buildings.
-
Susan B. Anthony and other womens right supporters were arrested for attempting to vote in Rochester, NY.
-
The Financial Panic of 1873 begins a sever stage of economic depression which lasts until 1879.
-
Joseph F. Glidden invents barbed wire. This provides the first economical way to fence cattle in the Great Plains
-
Charley Brewster Ross is abducted by a man who offered him candy and fireworks. This was the first kidnapping for randsom in the United States. Charley was never found.
-
Civil Rights Act guarantees equal use of public areas. It also forbids the exclusion of African Americans from jury duty.
-
Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone at the age of 29.
-
George A. Custer and 265 men attack and are killed by Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Horn River in Montana.
-
Charles Elmer invents Root Beer.
-
Thomas Edison invents the Phonograph at age 30.
-
German engineer Karl Benz produces the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine.
-
Thomas Edison invents lightbulbs.
-
Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor recounts the government's unjust treatment of Native Americans.
-
President James Garfield is shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled office-seeker.
-
President Garfield dies from a gunshot wound.
-
Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibits Chinese immigration for ten years.
-
Railroads in the United States and Canada adopt a system of standard time.
-
Construction begins in Chicago on the first building with a steel skeleton, William Jenney's ten-story Home Insurance Company.
-
President Grover Cleveland unveils the Statue of Liberty.
-
The Dawes Act subdivides Indian reservations into individual plots of land of 160 to 320 acres. "Surplus" lands are sold to white settlers.
-
Edward Bellamy publishes his utopian novel, Looking Backward, which predicts a cooperative commonwealth.
-
An abandoned reservoir breaks, flooding the city of Johnstown, Pa., and killing 2,295 people.
-
Mississippi restricts black suffrage by requiring voters to demonstrate an ability to read and interpret the US Constitution.
-
A New Orleans mobs breaks into a prison and kills eleven Sicilian immigrants accused of murdering the city's police chief.
