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Rockefeller built his first oil refinery near Cleveland and in 1870 incorporated the Standard Oil Company. By 1882 he had a near-monopoly of the oil business in the U.S., but his business practices led to the passing of antitrust laws. Late in life, Rockefeller devoted himself to philanthropy. FACTS He celebrated his own personal holiday. He did everything he could to dominate the oil industry. He liked handing out dimes too strangers.
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Durant's team made an admirable effort, extending their tracks 7 miles in a day, but Crocker won the $10,000 wager when his team laid 10 miles. The Transcontinental Railroad was completed when the final "Golden Spike" was driven into the rail bed on May 10, 1869. FACTS Two railroad companies competed to build the transcontinental railroad Thousands of Immigrants Built the Transcontinental Railroad The Transcontinental Railroad Was Completed at Promontory Point, Utah
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Alexander Graham Bell is famous for the invention of the telephone. He became interested in science of sound because his mother and wife were deaf. His experiments in sound eventually let him to want to send voice signals down a telegraph wire. FACTS He is widely credited with the invention of the first practical telephone. Bell became an excellent piano player at a young age. He worked on acoustic telegraphy with his assistant, an electrical designer named Thomas Watson.
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By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. FACTS Youngest of 7 children Nearly deaf as an adult Received 1,093 U.S. patents
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The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a United States antitrust law that regulates competition among enterprises, which was passed by Congress under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison FACTS In 1890, the U.S Congress passed the first antitrust law through the Sherman Act. Senator John Sherman (1823-1900), was a U.S Senator from Ohio. It was the first federal attempt to prevent the concentration of economic powers among the few large corporations such as trusts.
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On April 25th, 1898, the U.S. declared war on Spain, and the first battle occurred on May 1st, 1898 at Manila Bay in the Philippines. The U.S. won. On June 22nd, 1898 U.S. troops landed in Cuba. FACTS The Cubans were being treated horribly by the Spanish, which led to Cuba's desire for independence. Cubans were forced into slavery and thousands of them died from both starvation and disease. The U.S. supported the Cubans both for humanitarian and economic and trade reasons.
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The first Ellis Island Immigration Station officially opens on January 1, 1892, as three large ships wait to land. Seven hundred immigrants passed through Ellis Island that day, and nearly 450,000 followed over the course of that first year. FACTS It was used for pirate hangings in the early 1800s. The first immigrants to arrive at Ellis Island were three unaccompanied minors. The island wasn’t the first place immigrants landed when they arrived in New York.
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Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 United States Supreme Court decision that had wide ranging implications regarding the legality of racial segregation, which it essentially ruled as legal as long as the segregated facilities in question were of equal quality. FACTS The name of the organization that funded Plessy's legal fight. The majority opinion was written by Justice Henry Billings Brown. Plessy died on March 1, 1925 in Metairie, Louisiana at the age of sixty-two.
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Boxer Uprising, or Yihetuan Movement was an anti-imperialist, anti-foreign, and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901, toward the end of the Qing dynasty. FACTS Lead by Chinese nationalist in 1900 Chinese tried (but failed) to gain independence from the various European nations that controlled them Foreign nations formed an international coalition that ended in rebellion
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Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws. FACTS “The Jungle” is a work of fiction. “The Jungle” initially appeared in a socialist newspaper. It depicts one tragedy after another.
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