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The United States Acquires Alaska
William Seward arranged for the U.S. to buy Alaska from the Russians for $7.2 million. Seward had some trouble persuading the House of Representatives to approve funding for the purchase. Some people thought it was silly to buy what they called “Seward’s Icebox”. Time showed how wrong they were. In 1959, Alaska became a s state. -
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Industrialization
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A National Network
By 1856, the railroads extended west to the Mississippi River, and three years later, they crossed the Missouri. Over a decade later, crowds across the United States were happy as the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. -
The Great Strike of 1887
The great railroad strike of 1877 started on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in response to the cutting of wages for the second time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O). Striking workers would not allow any of the stock to roll until this second wage cut was revoked. The governor sent in state militia units to restore train service, but the soldiers refused to use force against the strikers and the governor called for federal troops. -
Invention of the light bulb
Thomas A. Edison invents a workable ligh bulb. The light bulb lasted about 40 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires". -
Queen Liliuokalani
Queen Liliuokalani realized that her reign in Hawaii had come to an end. More than 160 U.S. sailors and marines stood ready to aid the haoles (white foreigners) who planned to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy. In an eloquent statement of protest, the proud monarch surrendered to the superior force of the United States. -
The U.S.S MAINE Explodes
On February 15, 1898, the ship blew up in the harbor of Havana. More than 260 men were killed. At the time, no one really knew why the ship exploded. In 1898, however, American newspapers claimed the Spanish had blown up the ship. The journal’s headline read “ The warship Maine was split in two by an enemy’s secret infernal machine. Hearst’s paper offered a reward of $50,000 for the capture of the Spaniards who supposedly had committed the outrage. -
The Treaty of Paris
On December 10, 1898, the United States and Spain met in Paris to agree on a treaty. At the peace talks, Spain freed Cuba and turned over the islands of Guam in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the West Indies to the United States. Spain also sold the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. -
Fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
The deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York. It was also the second deadliest disaster in New York City – after the burning of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904 – until the destruction of the World Trade Center 90 years later. -
The Scopes Trial
The Scopes Trial opened on July 10, 1925, and almost overnight became a national sensation. Darrow called Bryan as an expert on the Bible—the contest that everyone had been waiting for. To handle the throngs of Bryan supporters, Judge Raulston moved the court outside, to a platform built under the maple trees. -
Black Tuesday
the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries and did not end in the United States until 1947. -
MEN IN THE STREETS
The population of hobos increased greatly during the Great Depression era of the 1930s. With no work and no prospects at home, many decided to travel for free via freight trains and try their luck elsewhere.Life as a hobo was a dangerous one. In addition to the problems of being itinerant, poor, far from home and support, and the hostile attitude of many train crews, the railroads employed their own security staff, often nicknamed bulls, who had a reputation for being rough with trespassers -
women
By 1930, 10 million women were earning wages; however, few rose to managerial jobs, and wherever they worked, women earned less money than men. Fearing competition for jobs, men argued that women were just temporary workers whose real job was at home. Between 1900 and 1930, the patterns of discrimination and inequality for women in the business world were established. -
DIRECT INTERVENTION
passed under President Herbert Hoover in order to lower the cost of home ownership.It established the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to charter and supervise federal savings and loan institutions. It also created the Federal Home Loan Banks which lend to S&Ls in order to finance home mortgages. -
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler offers economic stability to unemployed Germans during the Great Depression and becomes chancellor in 1933. -
The Persecution Begins
After Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all “non-Aryans” to be removed from government jobs. This order was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial purity that eventually led to the Holocaust—the systematic murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews. -
Union with Austria
German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or "union," with Austria was complete. The United States and the rest of the world did nothing. -
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WWII
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Shoot On Sight
After a German submarine fired on the U.S. destroyer Greer in the Atlantic on September 4, 1941, Roosevelt ordered navy commanders to respond. “When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike,” the president explained, “you crush him.” Roosevelt ordered the navy to shoot the German submarines on sight. -
Expanding the military
Despite opposition from some members of congress who scorned the bill as the silliest piece of legislation they had ever seen, the bill establishing the WAAC became law on May 15, 1942. The law gave the WAACs an official status and salary but few of the benefits granted to male soldiers. -
Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey
On the morning of September 26, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey was on his way to the Saigon airport in Vietnam. Only 28, Dewey served in the office of Strategic Services, the chief intelligence-gathering body of the U.S. military and forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Dewey was sent to assess what was becoming an explosive situation in Vietnam, a Southeast Asian country that had recently been freed from Japanese rule as a result of the allied victory in World War II. -
The movement grows
In April of 1965, SDS helped organize a march on Washington D.C., by some 20,000 protesters. By November of that year, a protest rally in Washington drew more than 30,000. -
The great society suffers
In August of 1967, President Johnson asked for a tax increase to help fund the war and to keep inflation in check. Congressional conservations agreed, but only after demanding and receiving a $6 billion reduction in funding for Great Society programs. -
John Lewis
On June 5, 1968, John Lewis, the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, fell to the floor and wept. Robert F. Kennedy, a leading Democratic candidate for president, had just been fatally shot. Two months earlier, when Martin Luther King, Jr., had fallen victim to an assassin’s bullet, Lewis had told himself he still had Kennedy.
