DATE- #41 1857
1857- Dred
Scott v. Sanford: Landmark Supreme Court
decision holds
that Congress does not have the right to ban
slavery in states and, furthermore, that slaves are not citizens.
DATE- #42 1859
1859- Abolitionist John
Brown and 21 followers capture federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va. (now W. Va.), in an attempt to spark
a slave revolt (Oct. 16).
DATE- #43 1860
1860- South Carolina secedes from the Union
DATE- #44 1861
1861- Confederates attack Ft.
the start of the Civil War.
Sumter in Charleston, S.C., marking
DATE- #45 1863
1863- Emancipation Proclamation
Confederate states
is issued, freeing slaves in the
DATE- #46 1865
1865- Lincoln is
assassinated (April 14) by John Wilkes Booth in
Washington, DC.
DATE- #47 1867
1867 -U.S. acquires Alaska from Russia for the sum
of $7.2 million
DATE- #48 1869
1869- Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads are
joined at
Promontory, Utah, creating first transcontinental railroad
DATE- #49 1870
1870- Fifteenth Amendment to
blacks the right to vote
the Constitution is ratified, giving
DATE- #50 1871
1871- Chicago fire kills 300
and leaves 90,000 people homeless
DATE- #51 1876
1876- Lt. Col. George A.
Custer's regiment is wiped out by Sioux
Indians under Sitting Bull at the Little Big Horn River, Mont.
DATE- #52 1886
1886 -Statue of
Liberty is dedicated (Oct. 28). American Federation of
Labor is organized
DATE- #53 1890
1890- Last major battle of the Indian
Wars occurs at Wounded Knee
in South Dakota the frontier is closed
DATE- #54 1896
1896- Plessy
v. Ferguson: Landmark Supreme Court decision
holds that racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for
the repressive Jim Crow laws in the South
DATE- #55 1898
1898- Spanish-American War: USS
Maine is blown up in Havana
harbor. U.S. declares war on Spain (Spain gives up control of
Cuba, which becomes an independent republic, and cedes
Puerto Rico, Guam, and (for $20 million) the Philippines to the
U.S.
DATE- #56 1903
1903- U.S. acquires Panama Canal Zone (treaty signed Nov. 17).
Wright brothers make the first controlled, sustained flight in
heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, N.C.
DATE- #57 1914
1914- World War I:
begins in 1914 U.S. enters World War I in 1917.
War ends in 1919
DATE- #58 1916
1916- Jeannette Rankin
of Montana is the first woman elected to the
U.S. House of Representatives
DATE- #59 1918
1918- Worldwide influenza epidemic strikes; by
million are dead. In U.S., 500,000 perish.
1920, nearly 20
DATE- #60 1919
1919- Nineteenth Amendment to
women the right to vote
the Constitution is ratified, granting