-
As New York City celebrated the Fourth of July, two of the city's most infamous gangs engaged in a deadly gang war. What started out as a small-scale street fight between two rival political clubs, plunged the city of New York into a two-day war between the notorious Irish-American gang, the Dead Rabbits, and the nativist-leaning Bowery Boys. -
Founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans. -
with his brother William, Henry M. Flagler, and others. The company grew by absorbing competitors and controlling nearly all of America's oil refineries by 1879, eventually becoming a monopoly that was ordered to be dissolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1911 for violating antitrust laws. -
He had filed the patent application for an "Improvement in Telegraphy" on February 14, 1876, which was just a few hours before a similar one was filed by Elisha Gray. This patent is considered a landmark achievement, leading to the first working telephone and later the establishment of the Bell Telephone Company. -
most often refers to the Land Run of 1893, which was the largest land rush in U.S. history. On September 16, 1893, over 100,000 participants rushed to claim homesteads in the Cherokee Outlet -
after the federal government took over immigration processing from New York's Castle Garden. As the nation's premier federal immigration station, it processed over 12 million immigrants in the following 62 years, a process that involved medical examinations and legal inspections to determine who could enter the United States. -
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, was published on May 17, 1900. The book, illustrated by W. W. Denslow, was first published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago and became an immediate success. -
J.P. Morgan did not "found" U.S. Steel in the traditional sense, but rather orchestrated its creation in 1901 through the merger of several companies, most notably Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Company, and financed the deal. He then merged it with his own Federal Steel Company, William Henry Moore's National Steel Company, and other firms to create the United States Steel Corporation, which instantly became the world's first billion-dollar corporation. -
Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States on September 14, 1901, after the assassination of President William McKinley. At the age of 42, Roosevelt, who was the Vice President at the time, was sworn in as the 26th president, making him the youngest president in U.S. history to assume office. -
Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford on June 16, 1903, in Detroit, Michigan. Backed by 11 investors with an initial capital of $28,000, the company's mission was to produce affordable automobiles for the masses. A month after its incorporation, the first Ford car, the Model A, was produced. -
Ida Tarbell published her influential article series, The History of the Standard Oil Company, in McClure's Magazine between 1902 and 1904. The series, later compiled into a two-volume book in 1904, was a landmark in investigative journalism that exposed John D. Rockefeller's monopolistic practices and aggressive tactics, leading to widespread public outrage and contributing to the eventual breakup of Standard Oil. -
Angel Island opened as an immigration station on January 21, 1910, and operated until August 1940, serving as a processing and detention center for immigrants on the West Coast. -
The 17th Amendment, which mandated the direct popular election of U.S. senators, was passed by Congress in 1912 and officially certified as part of the U.S. Constitution on May 31, 1913, after being ratified by the required number of states. -
The 16th Amendment, which allows Congress to levy a federal income tax without apportioning it among the states, was passed by Congress on July 2, 1909, and ratified by the states on February 3, 1913. This amendment was a response to the 1895 Supreme Court decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan Trust Co., which had previously made it difficult for the government to collect a nationwide income tax. -
The Empire State Building officially opened on May 1, 1931, and was completed in a record-breaking one year and forty-five days. At the time of its opening, it was the tallest building in the world, a title it held for nearly 40 years.