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Alexander Graham Bell Invents the Telephone
Bell's success originally came from him and his family trying to make new ways to help with deaf communication. His hometown, Edinburgh, Scotland, was known as the "Athens of the North" for its culture of science and arts. He held 18 patents by himself and he shared 12 with collaborators. -
Alaska is purchased from Russia
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Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad
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John D. Rockefeller Started Standard Oil
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Thomas Edison brings light to the world with the light bulb
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Chinese Exclusion Act
Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. The act even placed restrictions over Chinese who had already been living in the U.S. If they left, they had to obtain certifications to re-enter. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
This act was named after Ohio Senator John Sherman, who was a chairman of the Senate finance committee and the Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes. The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first step the U.S. Congress took to prohibit trusts. A trust is an arrangement where stockholders in different companies transfer their shares into a single set of trustees. -
Ellis Island opens
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Carnegie Steel’s Homestead Strike
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Hawaii is annexed
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Plessy v Ferguson
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Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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The U.S. declares war on Spain
Spain was the first European nation to sail west across the Atlantic Ocean, explore and colonize the Amerindian nations of the Western Hemisphere. Representatives of the United States and Spain signed a peace treaty on December 10, 1998 in Paris. As a result, Spain lost its control over the remains of its overseas empire. -
Rudyard Kipling published “The White Man’s Burden” in The New York Sun
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The start of the Boxer Rebellion
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Pres. McKinley is assassinated and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt becomes President
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Tenement Act
It mandated the installation of lighting, better ventilation, and indoor bathrooms. The usual tenement was about four stories tall and housed 10-20 families on a narrow twenty-five foot wide lot. The new law mandated that all rooms have windows and each apartment have its own toilet facilities. -
The Philippine Insurrection comes to an end
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Henry Ford produced his first Model T (car)
The Model T was the earliest effort to make a car that most people could actually buy. Other types were manufactured in Germany and Springfield, but were not affordable to most people. The Model T was actually affordable and it became so popular at one point that a majority of Americans owned one. -
The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine declares the U.S. right to intervene in the Wesern Hem
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Upton Sinclair releases “The Jungle”
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Pure Food & Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act are passed
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Peak year of immigration through Ellis Island
An average of 1,900 people passed through the immigration station every day. Most successfully passed through in a matter of hours. However, others could be detained for days or weeks. -
Creation of the NAACP
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The fire killed 145 workers. Most of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors inside the factory. This tragedy brought a huge amount of attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories. -
The Panama Canal is completed and opened for traffic
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The Assassination on Austria’s archduke Franz Ferdinand starts WWI
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The United States enters WWI
the U.S. joined its allies, Russia, Britain, and France, to fight in World War I. More than 2 million U.S. soldiers fought on battlefields in France under the command of Major General John J. Pershing. Many Americans were not happy with this and wanted to remain neutral. -
Ratification of the 18th Amendment - Prohibition
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Women got the right to vote
The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. women organized, petitioned, and picketed. When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift.
