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Alaska is purchased from Russia
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Completion of Transcontinental Railroad
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John D. Rockefeller starts Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller founder of the Standard Oil Company, become one of the world's wealthiest men and philanthropist. By the early 1880s Rockefeller controlled some 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court found Standard oil in violation of anti-trust laws and ordered to dissolve. Rockefeller donated more than $500 million to various philanthropic causes during his lifetime. -
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
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Thomas Edison brings light to the world with the light bulb
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Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a U.S. federal law prohibiting all immigrants of Chinese laborers. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. This was the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the promise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. -
Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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Sherman Anti-trust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. This act was based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Several states has passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses. -
Ellis Island opens
Ellis Island opened in 1892 as an immigration station. Some reasons they left their homes in the Old World included war, drought, famine and religion persecution. In hopes of for better opportunity in the New World. 1900 to 1914 was the peak years of Ellis Island's operation. Close to 5,000-10,000 people passes through the immigration station every day. -
Carnegie Steel’s Homestead Strike
The Homestead strike, was one of the most powerful new corporations, Carnegie Steel Company, against the nation's strongest trade union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. In 1889 a strike had won the steelworkers a three-year contact. By 1892 Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the union. -
Plessy v Ferguson
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The U.S. declares war on Spain
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Hawaii is annexed
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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
The Tenement Act ban the construction of dark, poorly ventilated, tenement buildings in the state of New York. The law required that all new buildings must be built with outward-facing windows, in every room, an open courtyard, proper ventilation, indoor toilets, and fire safeguards. This was not the first time that New York passes a public law that specifically dealt with housing reform. -
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 Wesern Hem
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Pure Food & Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act are passed
The purpose of the Pure Food and Drug Act was to protect the public against adulteration of food and from products identified as healthful without scientific support. The muckrakers heightened public awareness of safety issues from careless food preparation procedures. Theodore Roosevelt began the process by ensuring the passage of the Meat and Inspection Act, which was followed by the Pure Food and Drug Act was passes in 1906 to become effective at the start of 1907. -
Upton Sinclair releases “The Jungle”
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Peak year of immigration through Ellis Island
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Henry Ford produces his first Model T (car)
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Creation of the NAACP
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory killed 145 workers. It is remembered as one of the most infamous incident in American industrial history. The deaths were largely preventable and most of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. -
The Assassination on Austria’s archduke Franz Ferdinand starts WWI
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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
In the late 1800s, prohibition movement had spring up across the U.S., driven by certain religious groups who considered alcohol, drunkenness, a threat to our nation. Congress ratified the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxication liquors. Prohibition was hard to enforce and failed to have the intended effect of eliminating crime and other social problems. -
Women got the right to vote
The 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees all American women the right to vote. This milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused them.
