US History 1865-1920

By bv45807
  • U-boats created

    The boats Nordenfelt I and Nordenfelt II, built to a Nordenfelt design, followed in 1890. In 1903, the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel completed the first fully functional German-built submarine, Forelle, which Krupp sold to Russia during the Russo-Japanese War in April 1904.
  • Bessemer Process

    The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace.
  • Discovery of Gold in Pikes Peak

    Green Russell and Sam Bates found a small placer deposit near the mouth of Little Dry Creek that yielded about 20 troy ounces (622 grams) of gold, the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region.
  • Homestead Act

    The Homestead Act accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and five years of continuous residence on that land.
  • Morrill Land grant act

    The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or seizure.
  • Thomas edison invents light bulb

    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.
  • Transcontinental r/r completed

    The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad May 10, 1869, is recognized as one of our country's biggest achievements and one of mankind's biggest accomplishments.
  • Jacob Riis published his book of photos

    Jacob Riis published his photo book
  • Statue of Liberty built

    rench political intellectual and anti-slavery activist named Edouard de Laboulaye proposed that a statue representing liberty be built for the United States. This monument would honor the United States' centennial of independence and the friendship with France.
  • Battle of little bighorn

    The battle was a momentary victory for the Lakota and Cheyenne. The death of Custer and his troops became a rallying point for the United States to increase their efforts to force native peoples onto reservation lands.
  • Carlisle school established

    Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, opened in 1879 as the first government-run boarding school for Native American children
  • Farmers alliance created

    The Farmers' Alliance was first organized in Texas in the mid-1870s and soon spread to other states and territories in the South and Midwest. One of the group's main goals was to form cooperatives. Farmers set up cooperatively owned retail stores and marketing organizations.
  • Chinese exclusion act

    It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States.
  • Edison lights up NYC

    His company flipped the switch on his Pearl Street power station on September 4, 1882, providing hundreds of homes with electricity
  • Fredrick Jackson Turner writes essay of settling the west

    Turner's frontier thesis describes "the farmer's advance," waves of settlement in the westward migration. Turner says the pioneer is involved in the first wave. Pioneers farm, support their families and improve the land.
  • American federation of labor founded

    The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL–CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor.
  • Interstate commerce act passed

    On February 4, 1887, both the Senate and House passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which applied the Constitution's “Commerce Clause”—granting Congress the power “to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States”—to regulating railroad rates.
  • Dawes act

    The Dawes Act of 1887 regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States.
  • Alfred T Mahan writes his book on sea power

    In 1890, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, a lecturer in naval history and the president of the United States Naval War College, published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, a revolutionary analysis of the importance of naval power as a factor in the rise of the British Empire.
  • Sherman ant-trust act passed

    Approved July 2, 1890, The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. The Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts.
  • Wounded knee massacre

    The massacre at Wounded Knee, during which soldiers of the US Army 7th Cavalry Regiment indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of Sioux men, women, and children, marked the definitive end of Indian resistance to the encroachments of white settlers.
  • Pullman strike

    Pullman Strike, (May 11, 1894–c. July 20, 1894), in U.S. history, widespread railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States in June–July 1894.
  • Plessy v Ferguson

    163 U.S. 537, was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal".
  • Holden v hardy

    Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, is a US labor law case in which the US Supreme Court held a limitation on working time for miners and smelters as constitutional.
  • Spanish American War begins

    The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898) began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.
  • Hawaii is annexed

    On July 7, 1898, the Hawaiian Islands were annexed by this joint resolution. When the Hawaiian islands were formally annexed by the United States in 1898, the event marked the end of a lengthy internal struggle between native Hawaiians and non-native American businessmen for control of the Hawaiian government.
  • Phillipines islands are annexed

    In Paris on December 10, 1898, the United States paid Spain $20 million to annex the entire Philippine archipelago.
  • Newlands Reclamation act

    The Reclamation Act of 1902 is a United States federal law that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 20 states in the American West.
  • Panama Canal is built

    Throughout the 1800s, American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
  • Lochner v New York

    Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court holding that a New York State statute that prescribed maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers' right to freedom of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
  • Sinclair’s the Jungle written

    The Jungle was written by SInclair
  • Pure Food and drug act passed

    The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation's first consumer protection agency
  • Muller V Oregon

    Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. Women were provided by state mandate lesser work-hours than allotted to men.
  • Founding of the NAACP

    The NAACP was created in 1909 by an interracial group consisting of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others concerned with the challenges facing African Americans, especially in the wake of the 1908 Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot.
  • Hepner act

    Debate between Hepner and US government.
  • Panama Canal is built

    American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
  • Ford Motor company's first full assembly line starts

    The Ford Motor Company team decided to try to implement the moving assembly line in the automobile manufacturing process. After much trial and error, in 1913 Henry Ford and his employees successfully began using this innovation at our Highland Park assembly plant.
  • Federal Reserve act

    It was implemented to establish economic stability in the U.S. by introducing a central bank to oversee monetary policy.
  • 17th adm

    Passed by Congress on May 13, 1912, and ratified on April 8, 1913, the 17th Amendment modified Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution by allowing voters to cast direct votes for U.S. senators.
  • Clayton Antitrust act

    Price Discrimination: The Clayton Act prohibits price discrimination. This is the act of selling the same product to different buyers and charging different prices based on who is purchasing the goods.
  • Beginning of the first world war

    World War I was a global conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918. It was fought between two coalitions, the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia
  • Lusitania Sunk

    The Lusitania ship sunk
  • Selective Service act

    On May 18, 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which authorized the Federal Government to temporarily expand the military through conscription. The act eventually required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service.
  • US enters WWI

    On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917.
  • 18th adm

    Ratified on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors". This guide compiles Library of Congress digital materials, external websites, and a print bibliography related to Prohibition.
  • WWI ends

    On Nov. 11, 1918, after more than four years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Although fighting continued elsewhere, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was the first step to ending World War I.
  • 19 adm

    The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
  • Immigration quota act

    The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census.
  • National origins act

    The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act, was a federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe.
  • Scopes trial

    The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case