Timeline

NANCY'S DEAD RELATIVES

TIMELINE: The Significant, Trivial, Ironic, and the Just Plain Interesting

Events within each year are not necessarily in order.

1607	The first permanent English colony in the New World is established at Jamestown with 104/5 men and boys.
1608	Samuel Champlain claims Quebec for France. The first supply ship arrives in Jamestown to find only 38 survivors.
1609	The first secular song, a round called "Three Blind Mice" is published in London. Henry Hudson, exploring for the Dutch East India Company, sails up the Hudson River.
1610	Galileo discovers the moons of Jupiter.
1611	The King James Bible is published.
1612	Etienne Brule explores the Great Lakes. The Virginia colonists plant their first crop of tobacco.
1613	The first of the Romonovs, Tsar Mikhail, ascends the Russian throne. The Dutch establish a trading post on Manhattan Island.
1614	Pocahontas marries John Rolfe in Virginia.
1615	The second volume of Don Quixote is published.
1616	Shakespeare dies in Stratford-on-Avon. An epidemic devastates the tribes of New England, leaving whole villages abandoned.
1617	The Spanish found San Diego to protect Acapulco from the north. England begins transporting convicted criminals to the Virginia Colony.
1618	Walter Raleigh is beheaded for treason. The first English women arrive in Virginia.
1619	African slaves are brought to Virginia by the Dutch.
1620	The Mayflower lands 101 colonists at Plymouth Rock.
1621	With the aid of Tishquantum, called Squanto, the Plymouth colonists sign a peace treaty with the Wampanoag, decimated by the 1616 epidemic.
1622	Indians attack the Virginia settlements, killing 347. Rembrandt is born.
1623	The first cargo of lumber and furs leaves New Plymouth for England.
1624	The first Dutch families arrive in New Netherland.
1625	King James dies; his son ascends the throne as King Charles I. Bubonic plague kills 41,000 in London.
1626	An earthquake kills 10,000 in Naples. Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island.
1627	William Harvey confirms the circulation of blood.
1628	Parliament passes the Petition of Right, defining rights not to be infringed by the monarch.
1629	King Charles dissolves Parliament.
1630	Johannes Kepler dies. Nine-hundred colonists land in Massachusetts Bay under the leadership of John Winthrop. Boston is founded.
1631	Construction begins on the Taj Mahal.

1632

John Locke is born.

Maryland is established as a refuge for Catholics.

1633

Galileo is tortured by the Inquisition.

The first town government in the English colonies is established at Dorchester, Massachusetts.

1634

"Tulipmania" the first financial bubble, begins in the Netherlands.

Two-hundred settlers, many Catholic, arrive in Lord Baltimore's Maryland Colony.

The Pequot War begins in New England.

1635

The Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in the Colonies, is founded.

1636

Cambridge College is founded in Massachusetts. It will become Harvard.

After banishment from Massachusetts, Roger Williams founds Providence.

1637

Rene Descartes publishes his Discourse on Method.

The Tulip Bubble crashes.

The Pequot War ends. Many Pequot not killed are sold into slavery in Bermuda.

1638

The first school in the Colonies funded by local taxes is established in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Anne Hutchinson is banished from Massachusetts.

Sweden establishes a colony in present-day Delaware.

1639

The first post office in the Colonies opens.

Connecticut adopts the first constitution in North America.

1640

Peter Paul Rubens dies in Antwerp.

Massachusetts finds a lucrative export in its cod fisheries.

The Bay Psalm Book is the first book published in the English colonies.

1641

Catholics massacre thousands of Protestants in Ulster.

Slavery is legalized in New England.

1642

King Charles declares war on Parliament. The English Civil War begins.

Rembrandt completes the "Night Watch".

1643

King Louis XIV, age four, ascends the French throne.

The Dutch in New Amsterdam massacre 1,500 Wappinger Indians who had appealed to them for protection.

1644

"A great light in the night" amazes colonists, the first recorded "UFO" sighting.

1645

George Fox abandons the Anglican Church to follow his "inner light".

1646

The Roundheads (Parliament) defeat the Cavaliers (Monarchists) in the English Civil War.

1647

Massachusetts requires all larger settlements to provide public education.

1648

In the Ukraine, Cossacks massacre 12,000 Jews.

Boston shoemakers establish the first labor organization in the Americas.

1649

King Charles I is beheaded by Act of Parliament.

Boston suffers an epidemic of smallpox. They will reoccur frequently.

The Maryland Toleration Act affirms religious toleration for all Christians.

1650

Rene Descartes dies of pneumonia.

England's first coffee house opens.

1651

The General Court of Boston levies a fine for "observing any such day as Christmas".

1652

War breaks out between England and the Netherlands.

The minuet becomes fashionable in the French court.

1653

Oliver Cromwell assumes dictatorial powers in England.

1654

In New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant orders a wall built for protection from the Indians. It's location is now Wall Street.

1655

The first slave auction is held in New Amsterdam.

Peter Stuyvesant conquers the Swedes in Delaware.

1656

The pendulum clock is invented.

The first Quakers to arrive in Boston are arrested.

1657	Offered the crown by Parliament, Cromwell refuses, preferring his title of Lord Protector. The first chocolate shop opens in England. Jews and Quakers are given religious freedom in New Amsterdam.
1658	New Amsterdam forms the first police force in the Colonies.
1659	Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked.
1660	At the invitation of Parliament, the monarchy is restored with the accession of Charles II.
1661	Isaac Newton is admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge.
1662	The Act of Uniformity requires all office holders to accept the Book of Common Prayer.
1663	New England suffers an earthquake.
1664	The Black Plague strikes London. Sir George Carteret and John, Lord Baltimore, establish the colony of New Jersey.
1665	"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is painted by Vermeer.
1666	The last outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain is followed by the Great Fire of London, which destroys 13,200 houses and untold rats. Antonio Stradivari labels his first violin.
1667	John Milton publishes "Paradise Lost".
1668	Bombay becomes the property of the East India Company.
1669	Mount Etna erupts in Sicily, killing 15,000. John Lederer explores the Appalachian Mountains.
1670	The first ice cream is sold in Paris. Charles Town, South Carolina is founded.
1671	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz devises a mechanical calculator.
1672	Peter the Great is born.
1673	Marquette and Joliet explore the Mississippi River. Regular mail service is established between Boston and New York.
1674	The Treaty of Westminster cedes New Netherlands to the English. The first building is erected in what will become Chicago.
1675	The Royal Greenwich Observatory is established. Metacom, known as King Phillip, makes war on the settlers in New England. Although short-lived, it will be one of the bloodiest wars ever waged in North America.
1676	Planter Nathaniel Bacon leads a rebellion of frontiersmen against the Virginia Governor's tolerant Indian policies.
1677	Massachusetts is granted title to Maine for $6,000. Carolina colonists rebel against taxation in Culpeper's Rebellion.
1678	John Bunyan publishes "Pilgrim's Progress".
1679	Parliament passes the Habeas Corpus Act.
1680	The first "tall case", or grandfather, clock is built. The Pueblos revolt in New Mexico.
1681	The first female professional dancers debut at the Paris Opera. William Penn is granted a charter to 48,000 acres.

1682	Edmund Halley first sees the comet that will be named after him. LaSalle travels down the Mississippi to its mouth and claims the area for France. William Penn founds Philadelphia.
1683	The first German settlers leave for the English colonies.
1684	A patent was granted for the thimble
1685	King Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes, thus removing state toleration for Hugenots.
1686	Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy is published. Robinson Crusoe is rescued after 28 years.
1687	The Parthenon is shelled by the Venetians. Clocks begin to be made with two hands. A measles epidemic hits Boston.
1688	King James II is deposed and replaced by William [of Orange] and Mary in the Glorious Revolution.
1689	Peter the Great becomes Tsar of Russia. King William's War [War of the Great Alliance] begins, the second of several wars between the French and English and their respective Indian allies.
1690	Schenectady is burned by the French. Massachusetts begins printing paper money.
1691	Massachusetts Bay Colony grants religious toleration to all - except Catholics.
1692	Witch hysteria begins in Salem.
1693	Dom Perignon invents sparkling champagne.
1694	Voltaire is born.
1695	The town of Annapolis is laid out.
1696	Spain establishes a colony at Pensacola.
1697	Charles Perrault's Mother Goose Tales is published in France. The Treaty of Ryswick ends King William's War.
1698	Parliament opens the slave trade to English merchants.
1699	Pirate Captain Kidd is captured in Boston.
1700	John Dryden dies in poverty in London. Massachusetts and New York pass laws requiring all Catholic priests to leave or face imprisonment or death.
1701	Louisiana becomes a province of France. The French establish Detroit.
1702	Fort Louis, the first French settlement on the Gulf coast, is founded. Queen Anne's War [War of the Spanish Succession] begins. It will last eleven years.
1703	The Royal Navy loses 15 ships and 8,000 seamen in one storm.
1704	The first newspaper in the Colonies is published in Boston.
1705	Thomas Newcomen invents the steam engine. Virginia's Black Code reduces blacks to the status of property and prohibits black-white marriages.
1706	Albuquerque is founded in New Mexico.

1707	The Act of Union creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain from Scotland, Wales, and England. Germans from the Palatinate begin immigrating into the British colonies.
1708	A slave revolt on Long Island, New York causes eleven deaths.
1709	Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
1710	St. Paul's is completed in London.
1711	The Tuscarora War begins when tribesmen massacre 200 Carolina settlers.
1712	William Penn dies in Pennsylvania. Jean Jacques Rousseau is born. The Carolinas are divided into North and South
1713	Ending Queen Anne's War, the Treaty of Utrecht cedes Newfoundland and Acadia to Great Britain.
1714	Daniel Fahrenheit invents the mercury thermometer. George III ascends the throne. Tea is introduced to the Colonies.
1715	King Louis XIV of France, known as the Sun King, dies after a reign of 72 years. The Yamasee War erupts in South Carolina, resulting in the death of 7% of the white population.
1716	A company of Virginians crosses the Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley.
1717	Prussia institutes compulsory education, although few families send their daughters to school. German Dunkers, Mennonites, and Moravians begin large-scale immigration to Pennsylvania.
1718	New Orleans and San Antonio are founded. In the latter, Franciscan monks build a chapel they name the Alamo. Defeated in Carolinas, the Tuscarora move to New York. Blackbeard the Pirate raids Charleston.
1719	"Irish" potatoes are planted in New Hampshire.
1720	The South Sea Bubble collapses. The last major outbreak of the Black Death in Europe causes 50,000 deaths.
1721	Bach writes the "Brandenberg Concertos". "Italian Asparagus" is introduced into England - now known as broccoli.
1722	Boston's population reaches 12,000, making it the largest town in the Colonies.
1723	Architect Christopher Wren dies.
1724	Louisiana proclaims the Code Noir to regulate blacks and expel Jews.
1725	Tsar Peter the Great dies.
1726	Frankfort frees Jews from wearing identifying insignia on their outer garments. Other restrictions remain. Jonathan Swift writes Gulliver's Travels.
1727	Isaac Newton dies.
1728	"The Beggar's Opera" by John Gay is performed in London.
1729	Benjamin Franklin and Hugh Meredith purchase the Philadelphia Gazette.
1730	Lord "Turnip" Townshend demonstrates that livestock can be kept alive through the winter with that winter vegetable. It's the beginning of scientific farming. The city of Baltimore is founded.
1731	The first circulating library in North America is begun by Benjamin Franklin.

1732	A philanthropic group is granted a charter for a debtor's colony in Georgia. A side benefit is that the colony can be a buffer against the Spanish. The first Catholic mass in the British colonies is celebrated in Philadelphia.
1733	James Oglethorpe arrives in Charleston, SC with 130 colonists for Georgia. Off the coast of Florida, the Spanish Treasure Fleet sinks in a violent storm.
1734	Roy Roy dies.
1735	The proprietors of Georgia prohibit rum and slavery in the colony.
1736	Methodists John and Charles Wesley arrive in Savannah, Georgia.
1737	Benjamin Franklin establishes the first city-paid constabulary in Boston.
1738	South Carolina experiences a smallpox epidemic.
1739	Great Britain declares war on Spain, resulting in conflicts between Spanish Florida and Anglo Georgia and South Carolina. Three separate slave uprisings occur in South Carolina. Englishman George Whitefield begins his tour of the Colonies. He will ignite the Great Awakening with his preaching.
1740	Typhus kills thousands in Germany and Ireland. King George's War [War of Austrian Succession] begins.
1741	Indigo cultivation is introduced to South Carolina by colonist Elizabeth Lucas.
1742	Handel's Messiah is performed in Dublin. Russia finances Vitus Bering's exploration of Alaska.
1743	Hogarth paints "Marriage a la Mode".
1744	The song "God Save the King" is published.
1745	Bonnie Prince Charlie, grandson of the deposed James II, lands in Scotland.
1746	The Jacobites are defeated in Culloden. Prince Charlie escapes to Europe, leaving his followers to face the consequences.
1747	The Ecole des Portes et Chausees, the world's first engineering school, opens.
1748	The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends King George's War.
1749	Henry Fielding writes Tom Jones. The ever busy Ben Franklin invents the lightening rod.
1750	Johan Sebastian Bach dies in Leipzig. The conestoga wagon makes its appearance in Pennsylvania.
1751	Ben Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity is published.
1752	Great Britain and its colonies adopt the Gregorian Calendar. The first general hospital is founded in Philadelphia.
1753	James Lind demonstrates the curative effects of oranges and lemons on scurvy.
1754	King's College, now Columbia, is founded. The French and Indian War [Seven Years War] begins.
1755	An earthquake and fire kills 70,000 in Lisbon. It creates philosophical and religious debate over the death of so many innocents. Samuel Johnson publishes the first English language dictionary.
1756	The British are defeated by the French and their Indian allies at Fort Ticonderoga.

1757	Robert Clive defeats the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plessy, marking the beginning of the British Empire in India.
1758	Carolus Linneas publishes the first volume of Systema Naturae, the basis for modern zoological nomenclature.
1759	Voltaire writes Candide. The British under Wolfe capture Quebec. War breaks out between settlers and Cherokee in the southern colonies.
1760	George III ascends the throne. New York passes the first law regulating the practice of medicine. Fire destr0ys much of Boston.
1761	The Cherokee are defeated.
1762	The six year old musical prodigy, Amadeus Mozart, tours Europe. Construction of the first synagogue in the English colonies begins in Newport, Rhode Island.
1763	The Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years War cedes Canada to the British and Louisiana to Spain. Chief Pontiac begins waging war against white settlers.
1764	St. Louis is founded by Auguste Choteau.
1765	As a result of the expenses incurred protecting settlers from the French and Indians, Parliament passes the Stamp Act. The first medical school in the colonies is founded in Philadelphia.
1766	The Stamp Act is repealed by Parliament.
1767	The Mason-Dixon Line between Maryland and Pennsylvania is completed.
1768	The Massachusetts Assembly is dissolved for refusing to collect taxes.
1769	James Watt creates an improved steam engine.
1770	Tension between British troops and Boston citizens results in the Boston Massacre.
1771	Plague kills 57,000 in Moscow.
1772	Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence. The Watauga Association in Tennessee declares its independence.
1773	To protest the recent Tea Act, a group disguised as Indians board ships and dump their cargo into Boston harbor.
1774	The Intolerable Acts are passed by Parliament. The Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.
1775	Lexington and Concord are fought. Daniel Boone blazes the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. Alexander Cummings invents the flush toilet.
1776	Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations. Thomas Paine writes Common Sense.
1777	The Articles of Confederation are adopted by the Continental Congress.
1778	Washington winters his troops at Valley Forge.
1779	Captain James Cook dies in the Sandwich Islands
1780	Fort Nashborough is built on the Cumberland River.
1781	Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown.

1782

The Virginia legislature calls for the manumission of slaves.

The bald eagle is chosen as the American symbol.

1783

By the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain cedes all North America south of Canada and east of the Mississippi River to the Americans.

The Montgolfier brothers invent the hot air balloon.

1784

More than 50,000 British Loyalists emigrate to Canada.

Spain closes the Mississippi River to American shipping.

Ben Franklin invents bifocals.

1785

Edmund Cartwright invents the power loom.

A hot air balloon crosses the English Channel.

1786

The Continental Congress adopts the dollar as currency.

Debt-ridden farmers, led by Daniel Shay, rebel in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1787

A Constitutional Convention is convened in Philadelphia.

The Federalist Papers is published.

The Northwest Ordinance spells out the method of westward expansion, i.e. the admission of new states rather than the expansion of existing ones.

Mozart completes "Eine Leine Nachtmusik".

1788

The U.S. Constitution takes effect, having been ratified by the ninth state, New Hampshire.

Pennsylvania Quakers emancipate their slaves.

1789

Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on the ship Bounty.

In Paris, a mob storms the Bastille.

George Washington is inaugurated.

Thanksgiving becomes the first national holiday.

1790

The first U.S. Census shows a population of 3,929,625.

1791

The waltz becomes fashionable.

Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man.

The ratified Bill of Rights becomes law.

1792

Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin.

The Farmer's Almanac is published.

The cornerstone to the White House is laid.

1793

The Reign of Terror begins in France.

King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are guillotined.

Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act requiring escaped slaves to be returned to their owners.

1794

The Whisky Rebellion erupts over dissatisfaction with eastern ploices.

Josiah Pierson, inventor of a rivet machine, receives the first U.S. patent.

"Mad" Anthony Wayne is victorious at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

1795

Pinckney's Treaty defines the boundaries between the U.S. and Spanish territories in North America.

1796

Englishman Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox innoculation.

The first Independence Day is observed.

1797

USS Constitution (Old Ironsides") is launched to combat Barbary pirates.

In London, the first top hat is worn.

1798

George Washington dies at Mount Vernon.

Snow storms in New England kill hundreds.

1799

Alessandro Volta invents the battery.

1800

The Library of Congress is founded.

President Adams moves into the newly completed White House.

Gabriel Prosser leads a slave rebellion in Virginia.

1801

Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated.

Kentucky outlaws dueling.

1802

Beethoven debuts "Moonlight Sonata".

West Point is founded.

1803

President Jefferson buys Louisiana from the French.

Marbury vs Madison establishes the the concept of judicial review.

The first public library in the U.S. opens in Connecticut.

1804

Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis.

Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

1805

Napoleon is victorious at Austerlitz.

Horatio Nelson beats the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar.

Lewis and Clark sight the Pacific Ocean.

The first tornado recorded in the U.S. hits southern Illinois.

1806

Aaron Burr is charged with treason, but acquitted.

Zebulon Pike begins his western explorations.

1807

Robert Fulton invents the steamboat.

London's Pall Mall becomes the first street to be lit by gaslight.

1808

Napoleon is declared Emperor.

Congress prohibits the importation of African slaves.

Beethoven composes his fifth symphony.

1809

Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances, either murder or suicide.

Abraham Lincoln. Charles Darwin, Cyrus McCormick, Felix Mendelssohn, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Kit Carson, and William Gladstone are born. It was quite a year.

1810

John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant, organizes the Pacific Fur Company.

1811

Jane Austen writes Sense and Sensibility.

Tecumseh's Indian confederacy is dealt a blow in the Battle of Tippecanoe.

The first steamboat to ply the Mississippi River reaches New Orleans.

A large earthquake in New Madrid, Missouri, is felt as far away as Boston. Large aftershocks continue into the following year.

1812

The aptly named War of 1812 begins.

Dr. Joseph Lister becomes the first to use a disinfectant in surgery.

The waltz is introduced in England. Declared disgusting, it becomes hugely popular.

1813

Tecumseh dies at the Battle of the Thames.

1814

The White House is burned by the British.

Francis Scott Key writes the Star Spangled Banner.

1815

Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo by Wellington and Blucher.

The Battle of New Orleans secures the Louisiana Territory.

1816

Due to the eruption in Krakatoa, this becomes the "Year Without a Summer." New England experiences 10" of snow in June.

Rossini's opera "The Barber of Seville" premieres in Rome.

1817

Construction begins on the Erie Canal.

Baltimore is the first U.S. city to be lit by gaslight.

The New York Stock Exchange is founded.

1818

Austrian Franz Joseph Gruber composes "Silent Night".

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is published.

1819

The first steamship crosses the Atlantic.

The Panic of 1819 becomes the first major financial crisis to hit the U.S. It lasts at least four years.

1820

The Missouri Compromise regulates slavery in the western territories.

1821

Napoleon dies in exile on St. Helena.

Stephen Austin founds the first Anglo colony in Texas.

1822

Champollion deciphers the Rosetta Stone.

Franz Liszt, age 11, makes his debut in Vienna.

Freed slaves from America settle Liberia.

1823

President James Monroe states the Monroe Doctrine.

1824

The US War Department establishes the Department of Indian Affairs.

1825

Hudson Bay fur trader Peter Skene Odgen, know as "Monsieur Pete" begins his exploration of the Great Basin.

Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans.

The British Parliament legalizes trade unions.

1826

James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans is published.

The American Temperance Society is formed in Boston.

1827

New Orleans celebrates its first Mardi Gras.

1828

The Baltimore & Ohio, the nation's first commercial railroad, is begun.

Noah Webster's dictionary is published.

1829

Andrew Jackson is inaugurated.

Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker arrive in the U.S. to be "exhibited".

1830

President Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act.

Joseph Smith founds the Mormon Church.

In England, the first person is run over by a train.

1831

Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia.

Cholera first appears in the U.S.

The first U.S. bank robbery occurs at New York's City Bank.

Louisiana and Arkansas are the first states to declare Christmas a holiday.

Opium is exempted from federal tariffs.

Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train to successfully cross the Continental Divide.

1832

Cholera kills 4,340 in New Orleans.

Abraham Lincoln, Zachary Taylor, Winfield Scott, and Jefferson Davis fight in the Black Hawk War.

1833

Slavery is abolished in the British empire.

Santa Ana is elected President of Mexico.

1834

Cyrus McCormick patents the horse-drawn reaper.

President Jackson orders the first use of federal troops to quell a labor dispute.

1835

The War of Texas Independence begins.

The Liberty Bell cracks while tolling for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.

Phineas Taylor Barnum's circus begins its first tour.

Hans Christian Anderson publishes his first book of fairy tales.

1836

Oberlin becomes the first college to admit African-Americans.

The Alamo falls to Santa Ana, but the Texans are victorious at San Jacinto, winning their independence.

1837

Queen Victoria ascends the throne.

Canada gives blacks the right to vote.

Oberlin becomes the first co-educational college in the U.S.

A financial panic results in record levels of unemployment.

1838

The Trail of Tears results in the death of one-quarter of the Cherokee.

Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law.

Kentucky passes a law permitting women to attend school - with conditions.

1839

Daguerre invents photography.

Prussia limits children's work week to 51 hours.

The first public high school in the U.S. is established in Baltimore.

The first baseball game is played.

1840

The sixth U.S. Census finds the population has risen to 17,063,353.

1841

The first wagon train leaves independence, Missouri, bound for California.

Edgar Allen Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" creates the detective genre.

Thomas Cook opens the first travel agency.

1842

Dr. Crawford Long pioneers the use of ether in surgery. It will first be used in childbirth three years later.

1843

Dickens' A Christmas Carol is published.

The first minstrel show opens in New York City.

1844

Samuel Morse sends the first telegraph from Washington DC to Baltimore.

The first private bathtub is introduced in a New York City hotel.

1845

Texas is annexed.

The Irish Potato Famine begins.

Wagner's "Tannhauser" is performed in Dresden.

Henry David Thoreau moves to Walden Pond.

1846

California declares independence from Mexico during the Mexican War.

The Smithsonian is chartered.

The Donner Party, arriving at the Sierra Mountains too late in the year, makes camp for the winter.

1847

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is published.

Brigham Young founds Salt Lake City.

Jefferson Davis is elected to the U.S. Senate.

1848

Marx and Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.

The first Women's Rights Convention is held in Seneca Falls, NY.

Gold is discovered in California.

1849

GOLD RUSH

1850

The US Navy bans flogging.

Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale", tours America. Her tour is managed by P. T. Barnum.

Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" is published as sheet music.

Levi Strauss makes the first pair of blue jeans.

1851

Singer patents the sewing machine.

1852

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published.

Elisha Otis invents his "safety" elevator.

1853

The Crimean War begins.

Commodore Perry arrives in Japan.

Harriet Tubman begins her Underground Railroad.

1854

The Light Brigade charges at Balaclava.

Thoreau's Walden is published.

Worcester, Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. city to purchase land for a park.

1855

The first bridge across the Mississippi is completed at Minneapolis.

Bartlett's Quotations is published.

1856

The Republican Party holds its first national convention.

Lawrence, Kansas is sacked by pro-slavery forces.

1857

The Supreme Court rules that slaves are not citizens in the Dred Scott Decision.

A severe financial panic begins.

Mormons disguised as Indians kill 200 settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

1858

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates are held in Illinois.

The Can Can is performed for the first time in Paris.

1859

Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published.

Abolitionist John Brown raids Harpers Ferry.

The Comstock Lode is discovered near Virginia City, Nevada.

The first successful oil well is drilled near Titusville, Oklahoma.

1860

South Carolina secedes from the Union.

The Pony Express begins service.

The clipper ship Andrew Jackson arrives in San Francisco after a voyage of only 89 days.

1861

Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated.

The Civil War begins with the shelling of Fort Sumter.

1862

The Homestead Act is passed.

1863

The Emancipation Proclamation is released to the public.

Riots over the draft break out in New York City.

1864

Gettysburg and Vicksburg turn the tide in favor of the Union.

Sherman marches his forces to the sea.

Arapahoe and Cheyenne villagers are slaughtered by the cavalry at Sand Creek, Colorado.

1865

Lee surrenders at Appomattox.

President Lincoln is assassinated.

Tolstoy's War and Peace is published.

1866

The Ku Klux Klan is founded in Pulaski, TN.

Cattle are driven from Texas to the nearest railhead on the Chisolm Trail.

1867

Marx's Das Kapital is published.

President Andrew Johnson is impeached.

Johann Strauss composes "The Blue Danube Waltz".

1868

Scott Joplin is born.

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is published.

1869

The Suez Canal opens.

The Transcontinental Railroad is completed at Promontory Point, Utah.

1870

John D. Rockefeller founds Standard Oil.

Virginia prohibits desegregation in the first of the "Jim Crow" laws.

1871

The Great Fire of Chicago destroys 17,500 buildings.

1872

Suffragettes are arrested in Rochester, NY for attempting to vote.

Yellowstone National Park is created.

1873

The Panic of 1873 begins. The depression will last until 1879.

1874

Barbed wire is introduced to the Great Plains.

The first Impressionist paintings are exhibited in Paris.

1875

Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

1876

The Sioux are victorious at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

The National Baseball League is founded.

Scottish immigrant Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

1877

Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.

Reconstruction ends.

After attempting to take his people to Canada, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce declares that he "ill fight no more forever".

1878

Thirteen thousand die in a yellow fever epidemic in the lower Mississippi Valley, centered at Memphis.

1879

F. W. Woolworth opens the first five and dime store in Utica, NY.

Thomas Edison invents the carbon-filament light bulb.

1880

Gilbert and Sullivan debut "The Pirates of Penzance".

1881

President Garfield is assassinated.

Three are killed and three wounded in a gunfight near the OK Corral in Tombstone, AZ.

Clara Barton creates the Red Cross.

1882

Jesse James is killed by Frank Howard in St. Joseph, MO.

The Chinese Exclusion Act limits their immigration into the U.S.

1883

Buffalo Bill debuts his Wild West Show.

The Brooklyn Bridge is completed.

1884

Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is published in England. It will be published in the U.S. the following year.

1885

The world's first skyscraper is built is Chicago.

Louis Pasteur administers the first successful rabies vaccination.

1886

In Chicago, a demonstration in support of striking workers turns violent, resulting in the Haymarket Riot.

Geronimo surrenders.

The Statue of Liberty is dedicated.

1887

Construction begins on the Eiffel Tower.

Gottlieb Daimler unveils his first automobile.

Arthur Rubenstein, Marc Chagall, Fatty Arbuckle, Marcel Duchamp, Edna Ferber, Chaing Kai-shek, Georgia O'Keefe, Conrad Hilton, Le Corbusier, and Boris Karloff are born.

1888

The first Sears Roebuck catalogue is printed.

Jack the Ripper kills his first prostitute in London.

1889

Failure of the South Fork Dam kills 2,200 in Johnstown, PA.

An estimated 50,000 people participate in the first Oklahoma Land Rush.

1890

The 7th Cavalry kills at least 150 Lakota Sioux encamped at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act limiting cartels and monopolies is passed by Congress.

Vincent van Gogh shoots himself.

The Mormon Church condemns polygamy.

1891

Germany begins a system of old age pensions.

1892

General Electric is founded.

Ellis Island opens.

John Muir founds the Sierra Club.

Lizzie Borden axes her father and step-mother.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is published.

1893

The Chicago World's Fair opens.

The "railroad bubble" helps create financial panic and depression.

1894

The Pullman Strike involves 250,000 workers in 27 states.

Coca-Cola begins to be sold in bottles.

1895

Oscar Wilde is sentenced to hard labor for "the love that dare not speak its name".

1896

In Plessy vs Ferguson, the Supreme Court rules that education can be "separate but equal".

Ragtime music is born.

The world's first motoring death occurs in London - a pedestrian.

1897

News of gold in the Klondike reaches the U.S.

The Boston subway is completed.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is published.

The word "computer" is first used.

1898

Sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana precipitates the Spanish-American War.

Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of radium.

1899

Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is published.

1900

A hurricane devastates Galveston, TX, killing 8,000.

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is published.

1901

William McKinley is assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt assumes the Presidency.

The first "gusher" comes in at Spindletop, Beaumont, TX - just in time for more automobiles.

U.S. Steel is founded.

1902

The first Rose Bowl Game is held.

President Roosevelt begins the conservation of forests.

1903

"The Great Train Robbery" opens in theaters.

Ford Motor Company is founded.

The first World Series is held.

The Wright brothers successfully fly the first controlled, powered airplane at Kittyhawk, NC.

Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. "in perpetuity".

1904

The Panama Canal Zone is acquired.

The St. Louis World's Fair opens.

1905

Albert Einstein proposes the Theory of Relativity.

1906

An earthquake in San Francisco kills at least 3,000.

The launch of the HMS Dreadnought marks the beginning of a naval race between Britain and Germany. Months later, Germany will launch its first U-boat.

SOS becomes the international distress signal.

1907

Picasso begets Cubism.

1908

The Model T is introduced.

The U.S. prohibits immigration from Japan.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are rumored killed in Bolivia.

1909

The Boy Scouts of America are chartered.

1910

The Vatican introduces an compulsory oath against modernism for all priests.

Top of Page