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Alaska is purchased from Russia
Alaska was formally transferred to the United States for a price of $7.4 million. The United States paid little attention to Alaska for three decades after purchase. After Alaska was purchased, a major gold deposit was discovered in Yukon and even to this day, people are mining and recovering gold. -
Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad
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John D. Rockefeller started Standard Oil
At the time, kerosene was becoming an economic staple. Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil company of Ohio alongside his brother and a group of men in 1870. His enormous amount of wealth and success made him an object of muckraking journalists. The Supreme Court dissolved the Standard Oil Trust and after years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Standard Oil of New Jersey was in violation of anti-trust laws which forced it to dismantle. -
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
Bell was approached by a group of investors who wanted to perfect the harmonic telegraph, but he was more interested in investing a voice transmitting device. Investors allowed him to continue to work on both technologies while putting more of his focus into the harmonic telegraph. In the end, the telephone won out and after Bell won the patent on the device and three days later he made his first successful call to his assistant. -
Thomas Edison brings light to the world with the light bulb
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Chinese Exclusion Act
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Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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Sherman Antitrust Act
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Plessy v Ferguson
This was a decision that upheld the range of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. In 1892, an African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. The Brown v. Board of education in 1954, Earl Warren declare that anyone against Brown was being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th amendment." -
The U.S. declares war on Spain
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Hawaii is annexed
Hawaii would make a really good seaport for defense positions in the South Pacific. It was also a key provisioning spot for a new source of cane sugar production. Dole declared Hawaii an independent republic because we wanted their government to be compatible with our government to be compatible to foster trade and relations. -
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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Tenement Act
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Pres. McKinley is assassinated and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt becomes President
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The Philippine Insurrection comes to an end
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The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine declares the U.S. right to intervene in the Western Hem
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Upton Sinclair releases “The Jungle”
"The Jungle" was written to expose the dismaying working conditions in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair talks about how diseased, rotted, and contaminated meat products were processed. He also includes how sometimes when no meat inspectors were around, the workers would process dead, injured, and diseased animals. -
Pure Food & Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act are passed
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Peak year of immigration through Ellis Island
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Creation of the NAACP
In the 1908 Springfield race riot in Illinois, two black men were being held in jail for alleged crimes against white people. The NCAAP was formed in New York City, partially in response to the riot as well as the ongoing violence against African Americans around the country. In the 1950s and 1960s, the group won major legal victories, and today it has more than half a million members worldwide as well as over 1,000 brances. -
Henry Ford produced his first Model T (car)
The model T was built for the common people to drive every day. The cheapest one cost about $825. Ford kept prices low by sticking to just one model in order for the company to develop a system of interchangeable parts that reduced waste. This also saved time and made it possible for unskilled workers to produce thousands of cars every week. -
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
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The Assassination on Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand starts WWI
The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina angered Serbian nationalists. A group of young nationalists plotted a way to kill the archduke and after a few mishaps, one of them was able to kill them bot instantly. After the assassination, this set off a domino effect of events. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbia government for the attack. Then on July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. -
The Panama Canal is completed and opened for traffic
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The United States enters WWI
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Ratification of the 18th Amendment - Prohibition
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Women got the right to vote.
Achieving the milestone to allow all American women the right to vote was a long and lengthy struggle. It took them decades to accomplish their purchase as well as decades of agitation and protest. Almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment by 1919. When President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment this caused the political balance to shift in 1918. -
Ellis Island opens
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Carnegie Steel’s Homestead Strike
