1870:
Mar. 30:
The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution
guarantees the right to vote regardless "of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude."
1871:
P.T. Barnum opens his three-ring circus, hailing it as the
"Greatest Show on Earth."
Mar. 3: Congress declares that Indian tribes will no longer be
treated as independent nations with whom the government must
conduct negotiations.
Oct. 8:
The Great Chicago Fire claims 250 lives and destroys
17,500 buildings.
1874
The introduction of barbed wire provides the first economical way
to fence in cattle on the Great Plains.
The discovery of gold leads thousands of prospectors to trespass
on Indian lands the Black Hills in Dakota territory.
1875
Mar. 1: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to
guarantee equal use of public accommodations and places of
public amusement. It also forbids the exclusion of African
Americans from jury duty.
1876
Feb. 14: 29-year-old Alexander Graham Bell patents the
telephone.
June 25: George A. Custer and 265 officers and enlisted men are
killed by Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the
Little Horn River in Montana.
1877
Feb. 27: An electoral commission declares Rutherford Hayes
the winner of the disputed presidential election.
Apr. 10: President Hayes begins to withdraw federal troops
from the South, marking the official end to Reconstruction.
July 16:
The Great Railroad Strikes begins in Marinsburg, W.
Va., after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad imposes a 10 percent
wage cut.
Dec. 6: 30-year-old Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.
1878
German engineer Karl Benz produces the first automobile
powered by an internal combustion engine.
Jan. 10: The Senate defeats a woman's suffrage amendment 3416.
1879
Feb. 15: Congress grants woman attorneys the right to argue
cases before the Supreme Court.
Oct. 21: Thomas Edison invents the light bulb.
1880
US population: 50,155,783
1882
May 6: Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring
Chinese Chinese immigration for ten years.
1883
Oct. 15:
The Supreme Court rules that the Civil Rights Act of
1875 only forbids state-imposed discrimination, not that by
individuals or corporations.
1884
May 1: Construction begins in Chicago on the first building with
a steel skeleton, William Jenney's ten-story Home Insurance
Company, marking the birth of the skyscraper.
Oct. 9: Rev. Samuel D. Burchard of New York calls the
Democrats the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." With
help of Irish-American voters, Democratic presidential nominee
Grover Cleveland carried New York by 1,149 votes and won the
election.
1886
May 10: The Supreme Court holds that corporations are
persons covered by the 14th Amendment, and are entitled to due
process.
Oct. 28: President Grover Cleveland unveils the Statue of
Liberty.
1887
Feb. 4: The Interstate Commerce Act requires railroads to
charge reasonable rates and forbids them from from offering rate
reductions to preferred customers.
Feb. 8: The Dawes Severalty Act subdivides Indian reservations
into individual plots of land of 160 to 320 acres. "Surplus" lands
are sold to white settlers.
1890
US population: 62,947,714.
July 2: Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Nov. 1: Mississippi Plan. Mississippi restricts black suffrage by
requiring voters to demonstrate an ability to read and interpret
the US Constitution.
Dec. 15: Indian police kill Sitting Bull in South Dakota.
Dec. 29: Wounded Knee Massacre.
1891
James Naismith, a physical education instructor at the YMCA
Training College in Springfield, Mass., invents basketball.
May 19: The Populist party is founded in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Sept. 22: 900,000 acres of land ceded to the Sauk, Fox, and
Pottawatomi Indians is opened to white settlement.
1892
Jan. 1: Ellis Island opens to screen immigrants. Twenty million
immigrants passed through it before it was closed in 1954.
1893
Frederick Jackson Turner delivers his address on "The
Significance of the Frontier in American History," exploring the
the frontier experience's role in shaping American character.
1894
May 10: Pullman Strike. Workers at the Pullman sleeping car
plant in Chicago go on strike after the company cut wages
without reducing rents in company-owned housing. On June 26,
the American Railway Union begins to boycott trains carrying
Pullman cars.
July 3: Federal troops enforce a court injunction forbidding the
American Railway Union from interfering with interstate
commerce and delivery of the mail.
1896
May 18: Plessy v. Ferguson. The US Supreme Court rules that
segregation of blacks and whites was permitted under the
Constitution so long as both races receive equal facilities.
1898
Feb. 9: The de Lome letter, written by the Spanish minister to
the United States, characterizes Pres. McKinley as a weakling
lacking integrity. It is printed in William Randolph Hearst's New
York Journal.
Feb. 15: The battleship Maine blows up and sinks while
anchored in Cuba's Havana harbor.
Apr. 25 to Aug. 12: Spanish-American War. As a result of the
conflict, the United States acquires Puerto Rico, Guam, and the
Philippines.
May 1: Commodore George Dewey's flotilla defeats the Spanish
fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines, suffering only eight
wounded.
May 28: The Supreme Court rules that a child born of Chinese
parents in the United States is an American citizen and cannot be
deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
July 7: President McKinley signs a resolution annexing Hawaii.