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The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California sets off a human stampede west.
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People pour into California and boatloads of immigrants arrive from China.
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The Homestead Act is signed into low offering cheap land west of the Mississippi.
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Construction begins on a Transcontinental Railroad connection East with West.
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The civil war ends. Lincoln is assassinated and Johnson becomes president.
*Abraham Lincoln was president at this time. -
The first barbed wire is introduced. The "Devil's Rope" fences off the Great Plains.
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Driving in Golden Spike in Utah ceremonially completes the Transcontinental Railroad.
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A new gold strike in Montana pushes Plains Indians from their homelands.
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Custer makes his last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
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Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders after trying to keep his people off a reservation.
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After Reconstruction, African American "Exodusters" head west to Kansas and Oklahoma.
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The massacre of hunters of Lakota Indians Wounde Knee ends the Indians Wars.
