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Pike's Peak
Gold was discovered at Pike's Peak,Colorado. Many of the 'fifty-niners" who came to dig for their fortunes didn't find much gold but stayed and began mines used for digging for silver or began farming in Colorado. -
Homestead Act
The law allowed for a settler to acquire 160 acres by living on it for five years,improving it, and paying a nominal fee of $30. The Homestead Act allowed the first time for land to be bought for the filling of empty spaces and not for profit. -
Congress authorizes a transcontinental railroad
Impressed by military and postal needs, Congress rewarded the railroads woth 155,504994 acres along woth 49 million more given by the western states, forming the transcontinental railroad. -
Morrill Act
The Morill Act provided land to build schools of higher education. The law was passed after the South had suceded. Many "land grant colleges" became major state universities -
National Labor Union Formed
Led by William H. Sylvis,The National Labor Union followed the unsuccessful efforts of labor activists to form a coalition of local trade unions across the nation. -
Election of 1868
Election of 1868 was between Ulysses S. Grant(R), and Horatio Seymour(D). Republicans gained enthusiasm by reviving horrific memories of the CIvil War,better known as "waving the bloody shirt". Grant won 214 electoral votes to Seymour's 80. -
"Black Friday"
Fisk and Gould bid the price of gold to rapid prices and drove scores of innocent businessmen skyward. -
Women granted right to vote in Oregon Territory.
Womens right to vote in the Oregon Territory helped paved the way for the Nineteenth amendment which was passed in 1819 allowing women to vote in the United States. -
Knights of Labor Formed
The Knights of Labor began as a secret society sought out to include all types of workers,including women. They campaigned for economic and social reform and tried to vear away from political reform. -
Standard Oil Company Organized
Began by John D. Rockefeller. The Standard Oil Company allowed smaller oil companies to invest into his large company . The SOC cornered almost entirely the nation's petroleum market. -
Tweed's Scandal
Boss Tweed employed and bribed fraud elections to "milk" the metropolis 200 million. New York Times found evidence in 1871 relating to scheme and published information. -
Credit Mobilier Scandal
With Grant's cabinet being so corrupt, the Credit Mobilier Scandal exposed the break the Liberal Republicans had with Grant. Liberal Republicans urged an end to military Reconstruction. -
Election of 1872
Grant defeats liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley. -
Comstock Law
The act criminalized and punished offenders who published, distributed, or possessed items about medication for unlawful abortion. -
Panic of 1873
As the economy does every four years, a panic occured throughout the United States. Promoters laid too many railroad tracks,sunk more mines, and planted more grainfields than markets could handle. When profits could not be made,loans could not be paid off,and credit scores dropped. -
Resumption Act of 1875
Passed in 1875, the Resumption Act made the governmnet pledge the further withdrawal of greenbacks(paper money), from circulation and for it to be restored with gold at face value beginning in 1879. -
Whiskey Ring Scandal
The Whiskey Ring Scandal began in St.Louis in 1875 and was a conspiracy among government agents and politicians who were able to spend federal tax dollars on liquor before being caught -
Hayes-Tilden Standoff
With Grant's two terms being served,the Republicans had a new candidate;Rutherford B. Hayes,Governor of Ohio. The Democratic candidate was Samuel Tilden;the man who busted Boss Tweed. With votes being so close, visiting statemen went to three southern states to see which would win the vote. But who would count them? If Senate did, Republicans would. If the Speaker of the House did, Democrats would. -
Compromise of 1877
To break the election deadlock, the Senate and House met to state when Florida was reached the documents would be viewed by the electoral comission,and Hayes could take office if he withdrew federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina. -
Reconstruction Ends
With Hayes removal of federal troops from the southern states, Reconstruction came to a close. -
Edison's Electric Light
Edison's Electric Light transformed human habits, and turned night into day. -
Garfield Defeats Hancock
Although energetic and able, James Garfield barely claimed victory against Civil War hero Winfield Scott Hancock. -
Garfield Assassinated
President Garfield is shot in the back in a Washington railroad by metally ill Charles Guiteau, and dies eleven weeks later. -
First immigration laws passed
In 1882 a series of laws were passed to keep immigrants from coming into America to find jobs and better their lives.In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress .This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. -
Pendleton Act passed
With Garfield's death came the Pendleton Act. With the reform of the spoil system,the Pendleton Act made campaign contributions from federal employees illegal. It also established the Civil Service Commission, to make it where federal jobs were given ased on competitive exams rather than pull of who the person knew. -
Cleveland defeats Blaine
As republicans dug for information about the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, the election of 1884 became more about personality than principles. Cleveland took 219 electoral votes to Blaine's 182. -
Wabash Case Decided
Supreme Court ruled in the Wabash Case that Congress and the federal government had no right to control interstate commerce. -
American Federation of Labor Formed
The AFL consisted of an association of self-governing unions, each keeping their independence. Unlike the Knights of Labor, the AFL was composed of skilled workers such as craftsmen, and had no shame in leaving women and blacks and unskilled workers to fend for themselves. -
Harrison defeats Cleveland
Harrison won the election 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168. Cleveland becomes the first sitting president since Martin Van Buren to be voted out of office. -
National American Womens Suffrage Association Founded
Susan B. Anthony was the leader of the NAWSA and pushed the idea of womens suffrage in America. She and many others pushed for suffrage legislation at state and federal levels. -
McKinley Tariff Act Passed
To keep revenue up Congress passed the Tariff Act to boost rates to the highest they had ever been. The tariff caused many debt ridden farmers and rural voters, who were forced to buy goods from high priced industries and sell their agricuktural supplies, to rise in wrath and even caused republicans to lose seats in Congress. -
Cleveland Reelected
With the Populist party split Cleveland took office again being the frst president ever to serve two terms that were not consecutive. -
Depression of 1893
With splurges of overbuilding,labor disorder, and downward spiral of agricultural depression, the Panic of 1893 became the worst economic downturn of the nineteenth century. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
Plessy vs. Ferguson ruled that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution dealt with political and not social equality.Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote the majority opinion, stating that "separate but equal" laws did not imply the inferiority of one race to another. -
NAACP founded
The NAACP was founded by W.E.B. du Bois and pushed for social,politically,and economically equality among african americans in the United States and to hopefully eliminate racial discrimination.