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Columbus sets off on his voyage.
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John Cabot explores Newfoundland.
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First Africans are brought to the Americas.
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Juan Ponce de Leon explores Florida.
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Protestant Reformation spurs religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants.
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Hernan Cortes begins the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
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Francisco Pizarro subdues the Incas of Peru.
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Jaques Cartier, sailing for France, explores the St. Lawrence River.
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St. Augustine, the first European colony in present-day America, is founded.
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Raleigh's Roanoke Island venture.
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The English defeat the Spanish Armada.
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Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English colony, is established.
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Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec.
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Pocahontas marries John Rolfe.
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First Africans arrive in English America.
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First Africans arrive at Jamestown.
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Plymouth colony is founded; Pilgrims agree to the Mayflower Compact.
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Indian uprising in Virginia.
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Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded.
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Settlement of Maryland begins.
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Harvard College is established.
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Restoration of the English Monarchy.
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Restoration of the Stuart monarchy - King Charles II
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Puritans initiate the "Half-Way Covenant."
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Virginia enacts law declaring that children of slave women are slaves.
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The French explored the Mississippi River valley from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
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Pop'e leads rebellion in New Mexico.
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Pennsylvania is established by William Pen.
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Dominion of New England is established
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Royal Charter for Massachusetts is established.
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(1730s-1740s)
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John Peter Zenger is tried for seditious libel.
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George Whitefield preaches his first sermon in America, in Philadelphia.
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Jonathan Edward preaches "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
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Albany Congress adopts Plan of Union
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Parliament passes the Revenue(Sugar) Act.
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Parliament repeals the Stamp Act and passes the Declaratory Act.
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Parliament levies the Townshend duties.
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Colonists stage the Boston Tea Party
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Parliament passes the Coercive Acts; colonists hold First Continental Congress
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Colonists hold Second Continental Congress
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Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" is published; Declaration of Independence is signed.
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General Washington's troops cross the Delaware River; Battle of Trenton.
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Washington's troops winter at Morristown, New Jersey.
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Battle of Saratoga; General Burgoyne surrenders.
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Washington's troops winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
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Battles of Cowpens and Guildford Courthouse.
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General Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, Virginia.
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Treaty of Paris is signed.
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General Washington puts an end to the Newburgh Conspiracy
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Northwest Ordinance outlines a detailed plan for organizing western territories.
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Treaty of Fort Stanwix forces the Iroquois to give up land in New York and Pennsylvania.
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Land Ordinance outlines a plan for surveying and selling government lands.
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Virginia adopts the Statute of Religious Freedom.
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Delegates call for a constitutional convention.
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The Constitutional Convention is held in Philidelphia.
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The "Federalist Papers" are published.
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President George Washington is inaugurated.
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Rhode Island becomes the last state to ratify the Constitution.
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Bill of Rights is ratified.
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Bank of the United States is created.
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Slave revolt in Santa Domingo (Haiti).
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Washington issues a proclamation of neutrality.
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Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin.
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Jays Treaty is negotiated with England.
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Philidelphia-Lancaster Turnpike is completed.
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By the Treaty of Greenville, the United States purchases western lands from Native Americans.
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Pinckney's Treaty is negotiated with Spain.
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President Washington delivers his farewell address.
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Alien and Sedition Acts are passed.
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Thomas Jefferson is elected as president.
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Gabriel conspiracy in Richmond, VA.
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Embargo Act is passed
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Clermont, the first successful steamboat, sails to Albany.
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International slave trade is outlawed
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Participation in the international slave trade is outlawed.
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Supreme Court issues Fletcher v. Peck decision.
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Charles Deslondes revolt in Louisiana.
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Construction of the National Road begins.
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American Colonization Society is founded.
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The Second Bank of the United States is established. The first protective tariff goes into effect.
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Supreme Court issues McCulloh v. Maryland decision.
United States and Spain agree to the Transcontinental(Adams Onis) Treaty.
Tallmadge Amendment. -
Florida becomes a territory.
Missouri becomes a state. -
Mexico gains independence from Spain.
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Denmark Vasey conspiracy is discovered in Charleston, South Carolina.
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President Monroe enunciates the principles of the Monroe Doctrine.
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Supreme court issues Gibbons v. Ogden decision.
John Quincy Adams wins the presidential election by what some critics claim is a "corrupt bargain" with Henry Clay. -
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Ministers organize the American Society for the promotion of Temperance.
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Andrew Jackson wins presidential election.
John C. Calhoun publishes South Carolina Exposition and Protest. -
"Tariff of Abomination" goes into effect.
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Joseph Smith reveals the Book of Mormon.
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Congress passes the Indian Removal Act.
Andrew Jackson vetoes the Maysville Road Bill. -
Charles G. Finney begins preaching in upstate New York.
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Cyrus McCormick invents a mechanical reaper.
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Supreme Court issues Cherokee Nation V. Georgia decision.
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Nat Turner leads slave insurrection in Virginia.
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William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of The Liberator.
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Supreme Court issues Worcester v. Georgia decision.
South Carolina issues ordinance of nullification.
Andrew Jackson vetoes the Bank Recharter Bill. -
Congress passes Henry Clay's compromise tariff.
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American Anti-Slavery Society is founded.
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National Trades' Union is organized.
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Americans are defeated at the Alamo.
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Martin Van Buren is elected president.
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Transcendental Club holds its first meeting.
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John Deere invents the steel plow.
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Financial panic follows a drop in the price of cotton.
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Abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy is murdered.
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Eastern Indians are forced west on the Trail of Tears.
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William Henry Harrison, a Whig, is elected president.
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Abolitionists form the Liberty party.
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John Tyler becomes president.
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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issues Commonwealth v. Hunt decision.
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Americans and British agree to the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
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Rainbow, the first clipper ship, is launched.
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United States annexes Texas.
Mexico War begins. -
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is published.
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Elias Howe invents the sewing machine.
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Mormons, led by Brigham Young, undertake trek to Utah.
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Most members of the Donner party dies en route to California.
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California gold rush begins.
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At the Seneca Falls Convention, women issue the Declaration of Sentiments.
John Humphrey Noyes establishes the Oneida Community. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican War.
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Free-Soil party is organized.
California gold rush begins. -
California gold rush begins.
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Sojourner truth delivers her famous speech Ain't I a Woman?
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Plains Indians agree to the Fort Laramie Treaty.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.
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Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
The Republican Party is founded. -
Henry David Thoreau's Walden, or Life in the Woods is published.
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With the Gadsden Purchase, the United States acquires 30,000 square miles from Mexico.
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Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is published.
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Bessemer converter process allows steel to be made quickly and inexpensively.
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A pro-slavery mob sacks Lawrence, Kansas; John Brown stages the Pottawatomie Massacre in retaliation.
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts is caned and seriously injured by a pro-slavery congressman in the U.S. Senate. -
U.S. Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision.
Lecompton Constitution declares that slavery will be allowed in Kansas. -
Abraham Lincoln debates Stephen A. Douglas during the 1858 Illinois Senate race.
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Construction of New York's Central Park begins.
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John Brown and his follower's stage rais at Harper Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite a massive slave insurrection.
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First oil well is struck in Titusville, Pennsylvania.
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Comstock Lode is discovered.
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Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published.
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South Carolina secede from the Union.
Crittenden Compromise is proposed. -
Fort Sumter falls to Confederate forces; Lincoln issues call to arms.
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First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas).
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The Trent affair commences when a Union warship stops a British ship on the high seas and takes two Confederate agents into custody.
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Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated president.
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Peninsular campaign.
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Battles of Shiloh, Second Bull Run, and Antietam.
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Congress passes the Morrill Land Grant Act.
Congress guarantees the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
Congress passes the Homestead Act. -
Congress passes the Homestead Act.
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Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Siege of Vicksburg, Battles of Gettysburg, and Chattanooga.
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Lincoln Refuses to sign the Wade-Davis Bill.
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Thirteenth Amendment is ratified.
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Congress sets up the Freedmen's Bureau
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Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House.
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Lincoln Is Assassinated
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Ku Klux Klan is organized.
Congress passes Civil Rights Act. -
Congress passes the Military Reconstruction Act.
Congress passes the Tenure of Office Act -
14th Amendment is ratified.
Congress impeaches President Andrew Johnson; the Senate fails to convict him. -
First transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory, Utah.
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Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire.
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Alexander Graham Bell patents his telephone.
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Thomas A. Edison makes the first successful incandescent lightbulb.
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Compromise of 1877 ends Reconstruction.
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Great Railroad Strike.
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Supreme Court issues Munn v. Illinois decision.
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With the Compromise of 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes becomes president and Reconstruction comes to an end.
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Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated president.
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President James A. Garfield is assassinated.
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Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.
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John D. Rockefeller organizes the Standard Oil Trust.
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Congress passes the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.
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Surrender of Geronimo marks the end of the Indian Wars.
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Supreme Court issues Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois decision.
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American Federation of Labor is organized.
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In the Haymarket incident, a bomb set off at a Chicago labor rally kills and wounds police officers.
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Congress passes the Severalty Act.
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Interstate Commerce Commission is created.
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Hull-House, a settlement house, opes in Chicago.
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Otis Elevator Company installs the first electric elevator.
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Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the McKinley Tariff.
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Mississippi Plan resegregates public facilities by race.
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Basketball is invented.
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Ellis Island, a federal center for processing immigrants, opens.
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People's party drafts its Omaha platform.
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Fredrick J. Turner's "frontier thesis."
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Economic Depression affects a substantial proportion of the population.
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Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed
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Booker T. Washington delivers his Atlanta Compromise speech.
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Cuban Insurrection breaks out against Spanish rule.
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Supreme Court issues Plessy v. Ferguson decision.
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U.S. battleship Maine explodes in Havana Harbor.
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War of 1898.
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United States annexes Hawaii.
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U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the War of 1898.
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Filipino insurgents resist U.S. domination.
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Army Yellow Fever Commission confirms the cause of yellow fever.
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International alliance quells the Boxer Rebellion.
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Baseball's National League is formed.
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J Pierpont Morgan creates the U.S. Steel Corporation.
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Theodore Roosevelt attempts to arbitrate the coal strike.
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Justice Department breaks up Northern Securities Company.
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Congress passes the Elkins Act.
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Ford Motor Company is founded.
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Panamanians revolt against Columbia.
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Wright Brothers fly the first airplane.
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Russo-Japanese War.
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First movie house opens.
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Upton's Sinclair The Jungle is published.
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Congress passes the Meat INspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
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Great White Fleet circumnavigates the globe in a demonstration to America's rise to world-power status.
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Supreme Court issues Muller V. Oregon decision.
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National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP) is created.
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William Taft is inaugurated president.
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Congress passes the Mann-Elkins Act.
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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded.
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Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire.
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Congress passes the Federal Reserve Act.
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Congress passes the Clayton Anti-Trust Act.
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Panama Canal opens.
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World War I starts in Europe.
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United States intervenes in Mexico.
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British liner Lusitania, with Americans aborad, is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine.
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Congress passes the National Defense Act.
-
Louis Brandeis is nominated to fill a seat on the Supreme Court.
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Marcus Gravey brings to New York the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
-
Zimmerman telegram reveals that Germany is attempting to incite Mexico to enter the war against the United States.
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United States Enter The Great War.
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Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech.
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Representatives of warring nations sign armistice.
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Supreme Court issues Schenck v. United States decision.
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Race riot breaks out in Chicago.
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U.S. attorney general launches Red Scare.
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The Treaty of Versailles is presented to the Germans.
-
Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women's suffrage, is ratified.
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Prohibition begins.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise is published.
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Albert Einstein recieves the Nobel Peace Prize in physics.
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Congress passes the Emergency Immigration Act.
-
Representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France,
Italy, and Japan attend the Washington Naval Conference. -
Joint resolution of Congress officially ends the war among the United States, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.
-
T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is published.
First radio commercial is aired. -
United States begins sending observers to the League of
Nations.
Benito Mussolini comes to power in Italy. -
President Warren G. Harding dies in office.
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Congress passes the Immigration Act.
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Scopes "monkey trial" tests the teaching of evolution in Tenesee public schools.
-
Charles Lindbergh jr. makes first solo transatlantic flight.
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Herbert Hoover is elected president.
More than sixty nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact pledging not to go to war with one another, except in matters of
self-defense. -
Stock market crashes.
-
Congress passes the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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Congress passes the Glass-Steagall Act.
-
Congress sets up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
-
Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
-
Bonus Expeditionary Force converges on Washington to
demand payment of bonuses promised to war veterans. -
Congress passes the Emergency Banking Relief Act.
-
Congress passes the Beer-Wine Revenue Act.
-
Congress establishes the Civilian Conservation Corps.
-
Congress creates the Tennessee Valley Authority.
-
Congress establishes the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation. -
Congress creates the Civil Works Administration.
-
President Roosevelt creates the Works Progress
Administration. -
Congress passes the Wagner Act.
-
Social Security goes into effect.
-
Panay Incident.
-
Hitler forces the Anschluss (union) of Austria and Germany.
-
John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is published.
-
Soviet Union agrees to a nonaggression pact with Germany.
-
German troops invade Poland.
-
Richard Wright’s Native Son is published.
-
Battle of Britain.
-
Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
-
Japanese launch surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
-
Battle of Midway.
-
Roosevelt and Churchill meet Stalin, in Tehran.
-
Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff
meet at Casablanca. -
Allied forces land on Sicily.
-
Congress passes the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill
of Rights). -
Congress passes the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act
(GI Bill of Rights). -
D-day.
-
Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies; Hitler commits suicide.
-
Yalta Conference.
-
Fifty nations at war with the Axis Powers sign the United
Nations Charter. -
V-E day.
-
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
-
Japanese surrender.
-
Congress passes the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.
-
National Security Council (NSC) is established.
-
Allied forces begin airlifting supplies to West Berlin
-
Israel is proclaimed an independent nation.
-
Truman issues an executive order ending segregation in the
U.S. armed forces. -
Truman defeats Dewey in the presidential election.
-
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is created.
-
China “falls” to communism.
-
United States and other UN members go to war in Korea.
-
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is published.
-
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are executed.
-
Armistice is reached in Korea.
-
Geneva Accords adopted.
-
4 Army-McCarthy hearings are televised.
-
Supreme Court issues ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
-
Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott begins.
-
In Suez War, Israel, Britain, and France attack Egypt.
-
Hungarian revolt against the Warsaw Pact is quickly
suppressed. -
Baby Boom peaks.
-
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is published.
-
Federal troops ordered to protect students attempting to
integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. -
Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1.
-
U-2 incident reveals that the United States is flying spy
planes over the Soviet Union. -
Students in Greensboro, North Carolina, stage a sit-in to
demand service at a “whites-only” lunch counter. -
Bay of Pigs fiasco.
-
Soviets erect the Berlin Wall.
-
Cuban missile crisis.
-
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
-
John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
-
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act.
-
Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf resolution.
-
Malcolm X is assassinated by a rival group of black Muslims.
-
Riots break out in the African American community of
Watts, California. -
Viet Cong stages the Tet offensive.
-
Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated.
-
Robert Kennedy is assassinated.
