History of the USA
Page last modified
5/2/2021
See also South-East
Asia for early history of Hawaii
See Road
transport for rising US auto production, early 20th century.
USA Urban Growth – Image of Chicago, 1908 and 1970 here
USA Urban Growth – Map of Denver area here
USA Urban Growth – Washington DC, 1785, 1795 and present-day
USA Urban Growth – Washington urban sprawl
US Bureau of Economic
Analysis, https://www.bea.gov/
US Bureau of Labor, https://www.bls.gov/
US Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/
US population data, https://www.census.gov/popclock/
Colour Key:
People
Constitutional Amendments
Wikileaks
Monica Lewinsky
Somalia
State names
Panama
Korea
Vietnam region
Iran-Contra 1983-89
Watergate 1971-75
McCarthy 1954
Start of Cold War/Marshall Plan
World War
One
US-Spanish war 1898
US Civil
War 1861-65
Mexican War 1846-48
American Independence
Events
leading to US independence
Amerindian
nations – See Appendix
1 below
Hawaii
– see Appendix 2 below
US Presidents born, nominated, elected, died – see Appendix 3
below
Alaska – see Appendix
4 below
California – see Appendix
5 below
Florida – see Appendix
6 below
As MarkTwain said: “Both politicians and nappies need to be changed often and for the same
reason!”
13/1/2021, After a Senate vote, President Trump became the first
US President to be impeached twice. This second impeachment was based on his
alleged incitement of the Capitol Hill rioters of 6/1/2021.
6/1/2021, In Washington DC, USA, a mob of several thousand
Republican Trump
supporters stormed into the Capitol Buildings and occupied them for several
hours. They were protesting that the 2020 Presidential Election result, in
which Democrat Joe Biden, won, had been
falsified.
25/5/2020, In Minneapolis, a Black man, George Floyd, bought some
cigarettes at a shop and paid with a US$ 20 note. The shopkeeper accused Mr Floyd
of passing a counterfeit note; Mr Floyd refused to return the cigarettes. The
shopkeeper called the police. The police handcuffed Mr Floyd, then knelt on his
neck; he died of suffocation. This event started a series of ‘Black Lives
Matter’ marches and demonstrations that spread across the entire USA and
several European countries. A minority of the demonstrators also looted shops
and caused property damage. In Bristol a statue of the slave trader and local
philanthropist Edward
Colston was pulled from its plinth in Bristol UK and thrown in the
harbour. There were concerns that demonstrators were not social-distancing and
would spread a further wave of Covid-19.
26/2/2019, The longest US Government shutdown in history, 35
days, ended as President
Trump backed down before opposition in (Democrat-controlled)
Congress in a dispute over funding for a
‘wall’ (or, steel barrier) to keep out migrants on the Mexican border. However Trump
later declared an ‘emergency’ so as to try and secure funding for the barrier
by alternative means, by using emergency powers to take funding from other
areas of government.
11/1/2019, The USA began to pull its forces out of Syria.
Russia, ally of Syrian President Assad, welcomed the news, as Assad
appeared to have won the Syrian Civil War. There were concerns that the US move
could allow ISIS to regroup, or expose the Kurds to attacks from Turkey.
1/1/2019, In the USA, President Trump’s measure to raise tariffs on
US$ 250 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25% came into
effect.
8/5/2018, President Trump of the US unilaterally pulled
out of the Iran
Nuclear Deal, arranged by his predecessor President Obama, under which Iran received
financial aid in return for curbing its nuclear missiles programme.
2/10/2017, Early in the morning, a gunman opened fire in Las
Vegas. Shooting from the Mandalay Bay Hotel, he killed 58 and injured over 500.
He shot himself dead as policed closed in. The gunman was initially alleged to
be ISIS related but in fact there was no link to any terrorist organisation.
The motive remains unknown.
27/1/2017, President Trump of the US issued a
controversial executive order instituting a temporary travel ban on the entry
of people to the US from seven mainly-Muslim countries. The ban was challenged and
overturned in the US Courts.
12/6/2016, An Islamist gunman, Omar Mateen, entered a gay
nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and killed 50 people. It was the worst massacre
in recent US history.
7/12/2015, Donald Trump, contender for the Republican
Presidential nomination, called for a ban on all Muslims entering the US, after
an Islamic gunman shot 14 dead in San Bernardino, California, whilst the
conflict with ISIS was still ongoing. There were widespread protests at his
comments, and over 550,000 people in the UK signed a petition to ban him from Britain.
21/8/2015, Britain and Iran re-opened their embassies in each
other’s capitals. This followed a nuclear agreement between Iran and the USA
organised by US
President Obama (but not yet ratified by US Congress).
15/4/2013, The Boston
Marathon race was hit by two bombs, killing 3 and injuring 284.
17/9/2012, Occupy Wall
Street protests began in the USA
16/8/2012, Julian
Assange, founder of Wikileaks,
was officially given political asylum by Ecuador.
4/4/2011, In the US, Barack Obama announced his intention to stand
for re-election for a second term.
28/11/2010, Wikileaks released over 250,000 American diplomatic cables, of which 100,000
which were ‘secret’ or ‘confidential’.
19/9/2010, The BP oil
well, Deepwater Horizon, was capped after spilling millions of barrels of
oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
25/7/2010, Wikileaks released 90,000 covert and classified
documents relating to the US occupation of Afghanistan, 2004-2010.
20/4/2010, The Deepwater
Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing 11 workers. Major oil pollution ensued.
27/1/2010,
J D Salinger, reclusive author of ‘Catcher in the Rye’, died aged 91.
25/9/2009, Senator Edward Kennedy died, aged 77.
25/6/2009, The
American entertainer Michael Jackson
died (born 29/8/1958).
18/11/2008,
Heads of the big three US car manufacturers asked the US government for
assistance during the ongoing Credit Crunch. They said their companies were important as
job providers.
16/4/2007, Student Cho Seung Hui went on a shooting rampage at
Virginia Tech University, killing 32 staff and students. Cho then shot himself.
26/4/2006, Construction of the Freedom Tower in New York
began. It was on the site of the Twin Towers destroyed in the 9-11 attacks in
2001.
2/12/2005, Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000th person to be executed in the USA since capital punishment
was re-introduced in 1976.
29/8/2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the southern and south
–east states of the USA, with winds of up to 175 mph, severely damaging an area
as big as Great Britain. New Orleans
was particularly badly hit. The city of 500,000 people sits around 1 metre
below sea level, due to subsidence associated with the growth of the
Mississippi delta, and was flooded, in some areas several metres deep, when the
levees protecting the city from Lake Pontchartrain to the north gave way.
Several thousand people died. There were allegations that the maintenance of
the levees had been cut back to help fund the fighting in Iraq, and that
National Guardsmen who could have helped evacuate the victims and restore law
and order were away in Iraq. A week after the floods, there was almost no food
or potable water, and disease and looting, along with rapes and murder, were
rampant. People likened the situation to a Third World disaster, right in America
itself.
28/8/2005, The Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, ordered the
evacuation of the city as Hurricane
Katrina loomed.
18/11/2003, US President Bush visited Prime Minister Tony Blair of the
UK; there were ongoing protests against the US war on Iraq.
14/8/2003, Across the
N.E. USA and Canada, nine States (Ontario, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont) lost power when
one power station became overloaded and shut down, creating a domino effect
across the outdated electricity distribution system.
17/4/2003, John Paul Getty, oil magnate, died aged 84.
29/1/2002, US President Bush denounced the ‘Axis of Evil’ – the states of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
23/12/2001, The ‘shoe
bomber’, Richard
Reid, attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to
Miami, by setting off explosives hidden in his shoe, but was overpowered by the
other passengers.
7/10/2001. Following the September
11, 2001 attack on the USA, missile attacks began on Afghanistan, prior to US invasion. President George Bush announced
the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, to
root out Al Quaeda
4/10/2001, The first anthrax
attack occurred on a US government office, sent through the post. More anthrax arrived in the post on 9/10/2001.
20/9/2001, President Bush declared a ‘War on Terror’.
17/9/2001. The US Stock
market re-opened after the 9-11 attacks.
See also Islam and Middle East for events
following ‘9-11’ attacks
11/9/2001, The World Trade Centre in New York was hit by
two planes, bringing both its twin towers down. A third plane hit the Pentagon
in Washington, and a fourth crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside after
failing to reach perhaps Camp David or the White House. Casualties were
approximately 5,000. All four planes had been hijacked by Muslim extremist
suicide squads, but on the fourth plane, passengers retook control from the
hijackers. Osama
Bin Laden, head of the Al-Quaeda terrorist organisation, and based
in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, was swiftly blamed.
Click here for image from Financial Times, UK, September 11 2001. Interesting
symbolism relating to the NY attacks a few hours later.
6/8/2001, President Bush was warned that Osama Bin Laden
was planning a strike against the US and that this might involve hijacking of
aircraft.
11/6/2001, In the US, Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma
City bombing.
16/11/2000, Bill Clinton became the first US President to visit Vietnam.
8/11/2000, (1) In the controversial US Presidential
Elections, Republican George W Bush defeated Democrat Vice
President Al Gore but the final result was
delayed for over a month because of a disputed vote count in Florida.
(2) Hillary Rodham
Clinton was elected to the US Senate
24/7/2000, A concert planned for Central Park, New York,
was cancelled due to the threat of West
Nile virus, carried by mosquitoes and birds. The virus had been detected in
new York in 1999 and appeared to have persisted over-winter.
30/11/1999, In
Seattle, a large-scale protest by the
anti-globalisation movement caught the authorities unaware and forced the
cancellation on a WTO meeting.
4/1999,
President
Clinton considered housing Kosovan refugees at Guantanamo
bay, but the idea was scrapped.
20/4/1999, US
teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took two submachine guns to Columbine High School, for an attack
planned for Hitler’s birthday. 15 children were killed or injured before the
two killed themselves.
22/3/1999, Jack Kevorkian,
pro-euthanasia doctor, went on trial for murder in Pontiac, Michigan. He was later convicted of second-degree murder.
8/3/1999. Monica
Lewisnky arrived in Britain for a book-signing tour, beginning at
Harrods.
12/2/1999, President Clinton was
acquitted at his impeachment
trial.
7/1/1999, The impeachment trial of US President Bill Clinton began in Washington DC
19/11/1998, The US
Senate began impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton
over the Monica Lewinsky
affair. President Clinton was impeached
on 19/12/1998.
5/10/1998, The US
Congressional Committee debated whether to impeach president Clinton overt the Monica
Lewinsky affair, over allegations he had abused power and
tampered with witnesses.
17/8/1998, President
Bill Clinton
gave evidence to a Grand Jury about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
21/1/1998, US President Clinton
denied he had any sexual relationship with 24-year-old White House intern, Monica
Lewinsky. Rumours had circulated in the Press of an 18-month affair
in 1995.
2/6/1997, Timothy McVeigh
was convicted on 15 charges of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995
terrorist bombing of the Alfred P Murragh building in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. On 13/6/1997 he was sentenced
to death.
27/7/1996, A nail
bomb exploded at the Atlanta Olympics, killing two people and injuring over
100.
3/4/1996, Theodore Kaczynski, a former
mathematics professor, was arrested and charged with being the Unabomber. Overall he was reckoned to
have committed 16 bombings, killing 23. His motive was to persuade the world of
the unsustainability of modern technology as a threat to the planet.
16/10/1995, The Million Man March was held in
Washington DC. It was conceived by
Nation of Islam
leader Louis
Farrakhan.
11/5/1995, In New York City, 170 nations agreed to extend the nuclear non-proliferation treaty
indefinitely, without conditions.
19/4/1995. A car bomb in Oklahoma
City killed 168 including 12 children. The bomb hidden in a truck contained
4,000 lb of explosive and blew up in front of the Alfred P Murrah Federal
Building, where the Federal ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) was
housed, and also a children’s nursery. Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of the
bombing.
24/3/1995. The House of
Representatives, USA, passed welfare reforms denying state benefits to immigrants, unmarried mothers, and those
who refused to work.
3/3/1995, The UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia
ended.
8/12/1994, US President Clinton signed for the USA to
agree to the Uruguay Round of the GATT trade liberalisation agreement, This
replaced GATT by the WTO in 1995.
8/11/1994. The Republicans gained control of the US Congress.
19/9/1994, US troops went to Haiti to restore order.
3/2/1994, US President Clinton lifted trade sanctions
against Vietnam;
In December 1992 President Bush had allowed US companies to open offices in
Vietnam but the embargo meant they could not yet trade there.
1/1/1994, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
went into force.
17/11/1993. The US Congress voted for NAFTA.
3/10/1993, US troops fought large-scale land battles with
local militiamen in Mogadishu, Somalia.
23/8/1993, US
Police raided singer Michael Jackson’s
home after a 13-year old boy made allegations of child abuse.
19/4/1993. The siege at Waco, Texas, ended after 51
days. On 28/2/1993 the Branch Davidian
sect, led by David
Koresh, was visited by US Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
personnel to arrest Koresh for suspected firearms offences. Sect members opened
fire, killing four Federal Agents and injuring a dozen more. US government
troops and armoured cars surrounded the sect’s ranch. On 19 April the wooden
compound was set alight by cult members as troops fired tear gas into the
buildings. 86 people, including David Koresh and 17 children, died.
18/3/1993, Kenneth E Boulding, US economist and activist,
died (born 1910).
26/2/1993. Bomb exploded beneath World Trade Centre, New
York. Six were killed and hundreds injured when a bomb exploded in an underground car park, planted by Muslim
fundamentalists.
4/12/1992. US troops landed in Somalia. Rival warlord’s
factions were causing chaos on Somali capital Mogadishu and hundreds of
thousands were starving in the countryside. The US sent 28,000 troops to help
relief efforts, codenamed ‘Restore Hope’.
11/8/1992. The biggest
shopping mall in the USA opened in Minnesota. It had over 300 stores,
covering 4.2 million square feet.
28/5/1992. The US prison population reached a record high of 823,414. One in three
was being held for a drugs-related offence.
5/4/1992. Samuel Moore Walton, born 29/3/1918, founder of Wal-Mart, died.
26/3/1992. Mike Tyson was sentenced to 10 years in jail
after being found guilty of rape.
15/3/1991, Albania and the USA restored diplomatic relations
after a gap of 52 years.
4/3/1991, Vermont celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
12/12/1990, US President George Bush agreed to send US$ 1,000 million food aid to the Soviet
Union.
30/11/1990, US President George Bush proposed a US-Iraq meeting to
avoid war.
21/11/1990. A
declaration of the end of the Cold War was signed in Paris.
16/11/1990, Manuel Noriega claimed the US had denied him a
fair trial.
15/11/1990, President Bush signed the Clean Air Act 1990.
5/8/1990. 200 US Marines arrived in Liberia to rescue
US citizens caught in the civil war there.
29/5/1990, Rhode Island celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
23/5/1990, Rocky Graziano, US middle-weight champion
boxer, died
15/4/1990, Greta Garbo died in New York, after some 50
years of living a reclusive life after her 1940s Hollywood fame.
26/1/1990, Lewis Mumford, US historian (born 19/10/1895)
died.
3/1/1990, Noriega surrendered to US law enforcement; he was flown to
Miami and indicted on drugs charges.
30/12/1989, The US and the Vatican were negotiating over ending
the refuge of ex-dictator Manuel Noriega, who had fled to the Vatican
Embassy in Panama City to avoid
capture and extradition to the USA. At one stage the US lost patience and
played rock music at full volume outside the Embassy continuously from
loudspeakers erected by the US forces.
24/12/1989, Deposed Panamanian
leader Manuel
Noriega gave himself up to the Papal Nuncio in Panama City, having
dodged US troops trying to capture him.
21/12/1989. The USA invaded Panama and ousted General Noriega. Noriega sought refuge in the
Vatican Mission, where he remained until 3/1/1990. He then surrendered to US
forces.
12/12/1989, New York heiress Leona Helmsley was fined US$ 7
million and sentenced to 4 years prison for tax evasion. She had said “only
little people pay taxes”.
21/11/1989, North Carolina celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
14/9/1989, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada.
5/7/1989, (1) In the US, Colonel Oliver
North was fined US$ 150,000 and given a suspended prison sentence
for his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
(2) The TV
series Seinfeld began.
14/6/1989, Ronald Reagan was given a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth.
20/4/1989, A gun turret on US battleship Iowa exploded,
killing 47 sailors.
24/3/1989, US Congress agreed to renew a US$ 40
million aid programme for the Right-wing Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista
Government in Nicaragua. Funding ceased due to the Iran-Contra scandal.
14/3/1989, In the USA, the Bush administration announced a
ban on the import of semi-automatic assault rifles.
3/3/1989, Robert McFarlane was fined $20,000, plus two years’ probation, for his
role in the Iran-Contra affair.
23/2/1989, The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee rejected,
11–9, President
Bush's nomination of John Tower for Secretary of Defense.
22/2/1989, Death of Aldo Jacuzzi, American manufacturer of the
eponymous baths.
20/1/1989. George Herbert Walker Bush was sworn in as 41st US President.
30/12/1988, In the USA, Colonel Oliver North subpoenaed Presidents Ronald Reagan
and
George Bush to testify in the Iran-Contra trial.
6/12/1988, US rock star Roy Orbison died of a heart attack, aged 52.
26/7/1988, New York celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
25/6/1988, Virginia celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
21/6/1988, New Hampshire celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
23/5/1988, South Carolina celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
7/5/1988, Boston saw the first meeting of people who claimed to have been abducted by
aliens.
6/2/1988, Massachusetts celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
3/2/1988, In the USA, the Democrat-controlled House of
Democrats rejected President Reagan’s request for US$36.25
million to support the Nicaraguan Contras.
9/1/1988, Connecticut celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
2/1/1988, Georgia celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
18/12/1987¸ New Jersey celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
12/12/1987, Pennsylvania celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
8/12/1987. Gorbachev and Reagan signed an arms reduction
treaty, to eliminate medium range nuclear missiles from Europe.
7/12/1987, Delaware celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
29/9/1987, John M Poindexter resigned from the US Navy over the Iran-Contra affair.
3/8/1987, The US Irangate hearings
ended.
8/4/1987, Francis C Denebrink,
US naval officer, died aged 90
31/3/1987, In the
‘Baby M’ case, the US Supreme Court denied parental rights to surrogate
mothers.
19/2/1987, The US
lifted sanctions on Poland.
11/2/1987, The US
tested an atom bomb in Nevada.
25/11/1986. US
Vice-Admiral Pointdexter and Lieutenant Colonel
Oliver North were dismissed from the
Security Council after revelations that money from arms sales to Iran had been
channelled to Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas. Weapons were covertly sold to Iran
to secure the release of 7 US hostages held by pro-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon,
and the profits from the sales diverted to back Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
4/11/1986. Democrats
won control of the US Senate.
15/4/1986. The USA launched air strikes against Libya, in retaliation for Libya’s alleged support
of terrorism, and a bombing in a Berlin nightclub. Libya had also fired two
missiles at the US radar base on Lampedusa; both missed. Benghazi and Tripoli
were bombed, killing at least 100 people, including Gaddaffi’s 15-month-old adopted
daughter, Hanna.
The departure of the US planes from British airfields caused widespread
protests in the UK. On 17/4/1986 two British hostages in Lebanon were killed in
retaliation for the US raids.
27/2/1986, The United States Senate allowed its debates to be
televised on a trial basis.
25/1/1985, In a case
that divided American society, New York subway vigilante Bernard Goetze (born 7 November 1947) was told
by a Grand Jury that he would not face charged of murder for shooting four Black youths at close range on
22 December 1984; he would be tried for illegal possession of handguns. Goetze
served 8 months of a 1-year sentence on the handgun charge; one of his victims,
rendered a quadriplegic by the shooting, was awarded US$ 43 million in a civil
judgement against Goetze.
2/11/1984, Velma Barfield became the first woman to be executed in the USA since 1962.
26/7/1984, G H Gallup, US survey pioneer, died aged 82.
21/7/1984. The man who popularised jogging, James J Fixx,
had a heart attack and died whilst out running in Vermont, aged 52.
1/5/1984, Reagan concluded a visit to China.
25/10/1983. 2,000 US Marines invaded Grenada to restore
order after, on 19/10/1983, Grenada’s army had murdered the Prime Minister (Maurice Bishop)
and taken power. Britain opposed the US invasion. The US said it
had saved Grenada from becoming a Soviet-Cuban colony.
22/10/1983, The announcement by Washington that Pershing II
and Cruise Missiles were to be deployed in Europe precipitated large
anti-nuclear demonstrations in Britain, Germany and Italy.
4/5/1983, President Reagan affirmed his backing for the Right-wing Contras in their
battle against the Sandinistas.
23/3/1983. President Reagan proposed his ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system,
calling the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’.
4/2/1983, US President Reagan condemned the violence
associated with a strike of truck drivers.
2/2/1983. The US and USSR began START (Strategic Arms
Reduction Talks) in Geneva.
7/12/1982, The first execution by lethal injection was carried out
in the USA, in Texas, on Charles Books Jr.
2/11/1982, Democrats made large gains in US mid-term
elections. The Republicans retained control of the Senate.
12/6/1982, 800,000 marched for peace in New York City.
7/6/1982, Graceland, the mansion in Memphis, Tennessee where
Elvis
Presley lived until his death in 1977, was opened to the public.
5/5/1982, Secretary Janet Smith in the computer science department
at Vanderbilt University was injured when she opened a package from the Unabomber.
13/1/1982, An Air Florida jet crashed into the frozen Potomac
River near the White House, killing 78.
30/11/1981. The US and USSR began arms
talks in Geneva.
5/8/1981, President Reagan fired 11,359 striking air
traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
8/4/1981, Omar Bradley, US senior army officer, died
aged 88.
30/3/1981. President Reagan, 70 years old, survived an assassination attempt by John Hinckley. He was wounded, a bullet in the
left lung, outside Washington’s Hilton Hotel. The shooter, John Hinckley III,
arrested at the spot, had used a .22 calibre shot; had he used a .45 the
bullet, which lodged just 3 inches from Reagan’s heart, would have killed him.
22/11/1980, Mae West, American film star in the
1930s, died aged 88.
21/11/1980. The episode of Dallas
in which it was revealed who shot JR broke all viewing records.
25/9/1980, Charles Henry Elston, US Representative from
Ohio (born 1/1/1891) died.
7/6/1980, American novelist Henry Miller died.
7/5/1980, Paul Geidel, convicted of 2nd
degree murder, was released from the Fishkill Correctional Facility (prison) in
Beacon, New York, after serving 68 years and 245 days – the longest ever served
by a US inmate.
2/2/1980, A 36-hour prison riot began in New Mexico Penitentiary
due to overcrowding. 33 inmates died and US$ 25 million damage was done.
25/1/1980, The US ordered the deportation of Beatle Paul McCartney
after keeping him in prison for 9 days following the discovery of marijuana in
his luggage.
23/1/1980, President
Carter initiated the Carter Doctrine – that Middle Eastern oil reserves were of
strategic importance to the US and that any attempt by another power to take
control in the region would be met by US military action. This Doctrine was
adopted by President
Reagan, leading to the Gulf War.
19/1/1980, William O Douglas,
judge in the US Supreme Court and civil rights defender (born 16/10/1898 in
Maine, Minnesota) died.
1/10/1979. The USA handed back control of the
Canal Zone to Panama.
18/6/1979. US President Carter
and USSR President
Brezhnev signed the
SALT 2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) in Vienna.
8/5/1979, Talcott Parsons, US sociologist, died aged 76.
26/1/1979, Nelson Rockerfeller, Republican politician and
vice President to Gerald Ford, died.
3/1/1979, Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotel Group and once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor,
died.
1/1/1979. Diplomatic
relations were established between China and the USA.
15/12/1978, Cleveland,
Ohio, became the first major US city
to go into default since the great Depression, under mayor Dennis Kucinich.
3/11/1978. Vietnam and
the USA signed a 25-year treaty of friendship and co-operation in economic,
scientific and technical endeavours.
7/8/1978, President Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency at Love Canal.
7/4/1978. US President
Carter pulled back from building
a neutron bomb.
14/1/1978, Kurt Godel, Austrian-American logician, died aged 71.
13/1/1978, Hubert Humphrey, Vice President to Lyndon Johnson,
died.
10/1977, The US Department of Energy was created.
7/9/1977, A treaty between the USA and Panama was signed; the
US agreed to give Panama control of the Canal by 2000.
16/8/1977. The rock and roll star Elvis Presley died in Memphis,
Tennessee, aged 42. He died in the bathroom of his home although he was
actually pronounced dead at 3.30 pm in the emergency room of the Baptist
Hospital, Memphis. Overweight, he died of heart failure. He was buried in
Memphis on 18/8/1977. He was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, the survivor of twin
boys, on 8/1/1935.
26/6/1977. Elvis Presley made his last ever live stage appearance at the Market Square Arena in
Indianopolis.
4/6/1977, Two people died during violence on Puerto Rican Day in Chicago.
10/5/1977, American film star Joan Crawford died.
21/1/1977, Jimmy Carter issued a pardon for those who evaded
the draft for the Vietnam
War.
17/1/1977. The US restored the death
penalty, after a ten year suspension, and Gary Gilmore was executed by
firing squad in Utah.
18/8/1976, In North Korea, at Panmunjom, two US soldiers were killed whilst trying to chop down a tree in
the demilitarised zone; the tree had obscured their view.
3/7/1976. The Supreme Court of the USA, in the case of Gregg
vs. Georgia, ruled that the death
penalty was not cruel or unusual punishment and was constitutionally acceptable.
6/6/1976, Paul Getty, American oil tycoon, reputed to be
the richest man on earth, died aged
83, at his home, Sutton
Place, outside London. He was worth around US$ 4 billion.
5/4/1976. The multi-millionaire Howard Hughes died on his
private jet going to a hospital at Houston, Texas leaving a fortune of US$
2,000 million. He was aged 71.
25/5/1978, The Unabomber set off his first bomb, in
the security section of Northwestern University, USA.
23/2/1975, In response to the energy crisis, daylight saving
time began two months early in the USA.
14/1/1975, The House Committee on Internal Security (formerly
HUAC, House Committee on Un-American Activities) was formally terminated on
January 14, 1975, the day of the opening of the 94th Congress. The Committee's
files and staff were transferred on that day to the House Judiciary Committee.
6/1/1975, Burton K. Wheeler, 92, U.S. Senator, died.
Watergate scandal 1971-75
14/3/1975, Presidential aide Fred de la Rue was sentenced to
6 months imprisonment for his part on the Watergate cover up.
28/2/1975. The Watergate scandal continued as 3 Nixon
aides were sentenced for their role.
21/2/1975. Those convicted of offences in the Watergate affair received sentences of between 30 months and
8 years.
1/1/1975, In the USA, aides of President Nixon, H R Haldeman,
John D
Erlichman and John H Mitchell were found guilty of Watergate offences. On 21/2/1975 they were sentenced to
between 2 ½ and 8 years in prison.
8/9/1974, President Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford,
issued Nixon an unconditional pardon for any crimes
committed whilst in office.
9/8/1974. Gerald Ford sworn in as the 38th President of the USA. He succeeded Richard Nixon, who had resigned
over Watergate, hence Ford became the first
President not chosen by the US people in an election.
8/8/1974. Richard Nixon announced his resignation as
US President after his implication in the Watergate scandal. President
Ford granted a pardon to Nixon for any offences he might have committed
in the Watergate affair. Nixon was
the first American President to resign. See 9/5/1974. President Gerald Ford took office as the 38th
president. He was the first person not to have been elected by ballot to the
Presidency or Vice Presidency.
5/8/1974. President Nixon admitted his complicity in the
Watergate affair. See 27/7/1974 and 8/8/1974.
27/7/1974. A
Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon
for obstructing justice in the Watergate affair.
12/7/1974, the US John Erlichman, former Director of Domestic
Affairs at the White House, was found guilty of lying over the Watergate tapes.
9/5/1974. Impeachment proceedings were opened against President Nixon
– see 2/3/1974 and 8/8/1974.
2/3/1974. A USA Grand Jury decided Richard Nixon
was involved in the Watergate cover up see 9/5/1974.
1/3/1974. 7 of President
Nixon’s advisors were arrested over charges to obstruct justice in
the Watergate investigation.
9/11/1973. Six Watergate burglars
jailed in the US.
1/11/1973.. The Watergate Tapes case
continued with President Richard Nixon in Washington.
20/10/1973, Sixteen impeachment orders were raised in
the US House of Representatives after President Nixon ordered the removal from
office of a special prosecutor who had refused to do a deal over the Watergate tapes, see 16/7/1973 and 27/7/1974.
12/10/1973, The US Court of Appeals ordered Richard Nixon
to hand over the Watergate Tapes.
23/10/1973, The US House of Representatives ordered a
judicial committee to consider the evidence for impeaching President Nixon.
16/7/1973, A former White House aide revealed that all conversations in the White House had been recorded, at President
Nixon’s request, see 25/6/1973. Nixon flouted several subsequent
court orders to release the tapes, see 20/10/1973.
25/6/1973, US President
Nixon’s former legal counsel, John Dean, gave evidence at the Ervin Committee that directly
contradicted Nixon’s statement regarding Watergate that he had
made on 22/5/1973, see also 16/7/1973.
22/5/1973, President Nixon
admitted concealing evidence of wrongdoing regarding Watergate
(see 17/5/1973 and 25//6/1973), but denied knowing of the burglary before it
took place.
17/5/1973. US Senate
hearings over Watergate
began. See 30/1/1973 and 22/5/1973.
30/4/1973. 4 of Nixon’s aides resigned over Watergate.
18/4/1973, Nixon told Haldemann, a White House aide,
to destroy the Watergate tapes. Had he done so, Nixon
would probably have avoided having to resign.
17/4/1973, President Nixon dropped the ban on
White House staff appearing before Senate Committee hearings on Watergate.
16/4/1973. Criminal
indictments were expected to be issued against senior members of President
Nixon’s staff over the Watergate affair.
30/1/1973, G Gordon and James McCord were convicted of
burglary, wire-tapping, and attempted bugging of the Democratic Party
headquarters at the Watergate Building in
Washington. The men were part of the Campaign to Re Elect the President (CREEP)
campaign (President
Nixon). See 17/6/1972 and 17/5/1973.
15/9/1972,
Seven men were indicted in Washington over the Watergate
burglary on 17/6/1972. They were charged
with burglary, wiretapping and conspiracy. Five of the seven were arrested at
the scene, attempting to install bugging devices. All seven were members of the
Republican committee to re-elect President
Nixon.
17/6/1972. American
biggest political scandal, Watergate, began when five burglars were caught breaking
into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex,
Washington DC, with photographic and surveillance equipment. See 30/1/1973.
14/2/1971, President Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White
House. It was on this system that the Watergate tapes were recorded.
3/4/1974, President Nixon
agreed to pay US$ 432,787 outstanding income tax.
17/3/1974, The Arab oil embargo, imposed om the US in 1973 in
retaliation for US support for Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, was lifted.
4/2/1974, Heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped.
14/12/1973. John Paul Getty II was freed by kidnappers
after his grandfather paid a US$ 750,000 ransom.
10/10/1973, US Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after
pleading guilty to tax evasion charges.
15/7/1973. Paul Getty III was kidnapped
26/10/1973, US President Nixon considered an attack on the Soviet Union,
after hearing that the USSR was arming Arab nations in the Middle East.
4/5/1973, The Sears Tower in Chicago, then the world’s tallest office building at 1,454 feet and 110 storeys
was ‘topped out’ when the highest storey was completed.
23/4/1973, Henry Kissinger, head of the US National
Security Council, called for a new ‘Atlantic Charter’ governing relations
between the US, Europe and Japan.
28/3/1973, Marlon Brando refused an Oscar because of
Hollywood’s abuses of the American
Indians.
28/2/1973, US Indians took hostages at Wounded Knee.
They challenged the US Government to ‘repeat the massacre of Sioux Indians’
that happened there over 80 years earlier.
13/2/1973, The USA
devalued the Dollar by 10%, causing the price of gold to rise to US$42.22.
29/1/1973, The USA’s balance
of payments deficit for 1972 was estimated at US$ 6 – 7 billion; the Dollar collapsed.
3/10/1972, The US and USSR signed SALT (Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty) accords, limiting submarine based and land based missiles.
26/9/1972. President Nixon
opened the Museum of Immigration, at
the base of the Statue of Liberty, New York.
8/7/1972, US President Nixon
announced that the USSR was to buy US$ 750 million worth of US grain
over the next 3 years.
29/6/1972. The US
Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.
29/5/1972. Brezhnev
and Nixon signed SALT-2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty).
22/5/1972. US President Richard Nixon
arrived in Moscow, the first visit to
the Soviet Union by an American President..
15/5/1972, George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, was shot
and injured by a White assailant, Arthur Bremer, aged 21. Wallace, known for his racist
and segregationist policies (see 2/9/1963), was campaigning for the Democratic
Party’s Presidential nomination.
2/5./1972, J Edgar Hoover, American founder of and head
of the FBI, died in Washington DC.
21/2/1972, US President Nixon landed in China to forge links
with Prime Minister Chou En Lai and Chairman Mao Tse Tung.
China
still objected to US support for the Taiwan regime.
US involvement in Vietnam,
Cambodia, 1961-75
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
30/4/1975. Saigon surrendered to the North Vietnamese, so ending the 15-year Vietnam War. This had been the longest
conflict of the 20th century.
29/4/1975. A US
helicopter evacuated Americans and a few lucky Vietnamese from the roof of the
US Embassy in Saigon to a nearby US warship a day before Saigon fell to the Vietcong. The
picture of the helicopter evacuation became an iconic symbol of US humiliation
in Vietnam.
25/4/1975, The
Australian Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, shut as North Vietnamese forces closed
in.
23/4/1975, US President Ford
announced that US involvement in Vietnam was to end. US forces began the final
evacuation of personnel from Saigon by aeroplane, see 28 and 29/4/1973.
7/1/1975, North
Vietnamese forces captured the southern province of Phuoc Long (see
29/3/1973). There was no reaction from the US. On 10/3/1975 North Vietnam
captured the strategic town of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. Within
four days South
Vietnam decided to abandon the entire Central Highlands to
concentrate on the defence of Saigon. This strategic withdrawal became a
rout, woith hundreds of thousands of cicilians, and fleeing soldiers, clogging
the roads as the Communists
advanced. By 1/4/1975 half of South Vietnam was occupied by the North and
the South
Vietnamese army was disintegrating. US Congress had no intention of
further aid to the South; they did not even intend to organise an evacuation of
US citizens and pro-US Vietnamese, instead hoping to persuade the North to stop
short of total conquest and accept a coalition government in Saigon. President Thieu of South Vietnam resigned on
28/4/1975 and was replaced by the neutralist General Duong Van Minh. By then
North Vietnamese forces were in the suburbs of Saigon. A few fortunate
personnel were evacuated from the roof of the US Embassy by helicopter (see
29/4/1975). However in the last-minute
chaos nobody thought to destroy the records of South Vietnamese who had
supported the US. On 30/4/1975 a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the
gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon and a soldier raised the North
Vietnamese flag. Then the event was repeated for the benefit of TV cameras who
had missed the original. Meanwhile in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge had entered
Phnom Penh and begub deporting hundreds of thousands of its population to the
killing fields. The defeat of the US was
total and complete.
5/1/1975, The Cambodian
capital, Phnom Penh, came under siege by Khmer Rouge forces (led by Pol Pot), despite heavy
US military aid to the Cambodian leader, Lon Nol.
31/7/1973, US
Congress voted to cut off funds for US military action anywhere in Indochina.
16/4/1973.
US bombing
raids resumed on Laos.
29/3/1973, US
pulled its last troops out of South Vietnam. The quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC worsened the
finances of the USA. Nixon was in trouble with Watergate
and Congress reasserted its power over US foreign policy. The War Powers Resolution of November 1973
removed the President’s power to make war without prior Congressional approval,
nullifying Nixon’s
promise to send troops to support South Vietnam if the Communists threatened again.
In 1974 Congress slashed the budget for the war in Vietnam. US influence also
declined in Cambodia,
where extensive bombing had disrupted society and promoted the growth of the
Communist Khmer Rouge, backed by Prince Sihanouk.
Many Cambodians regarded Sihanouk as their legitimate leader, and by
1974 Sihanouk’s US-backed replacement, General Lon Nol,
controlled just one third of Cambodia. In Laos an extensive bombing
campaign to destroy the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, a network of routes used to supply the Communist Vietcong, simply resulted in the strengthening of the Pathet Lao, the Laotian Communists.
Throughout 1974 the North Vietnamese quietly built up strength in the border
regions of South Vietnam, and on 7/1/1975 they captured the South Vietnamese
province of Phuoc Long.
21/2/1973, A ceasefire
agreement was signed in Vientiane, capital of Laos, between the Pathet Lao
Communist guerrillas and the Lao Government.
By now the Communists occupied much of Laos. See 2/12/1975.
12/2/1973, The first
group of American POWs was released from North Vietnam.
27/1//1973. The war in Vietnam
ended, as President
Nixon signed the ceasefire agreement in Paris. One million
combatants had been killed. The last US troops left Vietnam on 29/3/1972. This was just
days before the Watergate scandal erupted. US
astronauts were preparing for the launch of Skylab. However fighting
later continued between North and South Vietnam,
see 30/4/1975.
15/1/1973. Bombing of North
Vietnam halted by Nixon,
as he ordered a ceasefire. This followed an intensive US bombing
campaign of Hanoi over Christmas 1972, in which a hospital was destroyed and
1,600 civilians killed as 36,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city,
leaving much of it in ruins. US Congress
was hostile to further bombing raids.
18/12/1972.
Heavy bombing of Hanoi by US B-52s.
22/11/1972.
The first US B-52 bomber was shot down over Vietnam.
28/6/1972,
US President
Nixon announced that no more draftees would be sent to Vietnam.
15/4/1972, US bombers made heavy raids on North Vietnam.
30/3/1972, North Vietnam
launched a major attack on the South. On 15/4/1972 the US made heavy
bombing raids on North
Vietnam. North Vietnam abandoned guerrilla tactics and launched a major
conventional invasion, with tanks and heavy artillery. The South Vietnamese
city of Quang Tri fell on 1/5/1972 and South Vietnam seemed to have lost the
war. However the US responded with massive air power and smart bombs. North
Vietnamese forces were driven back to the dividing line and Hanoi proposed peace talks in October 1972.
Under domestic pressure to end US involvement in Vietnam, Nixon could not refuse this offer.
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
26/12/1971. The US resumed bombing of North Vietnam.
7/4/1971, US
President Nixon promised to withdraw 100,000 troops from Vietnam by Christmas.
13/2/1971, South
Vietnamese troops, with US airctaft and artillery backing, entered Laos.
29/4/1971, US
combat deaths in Vietnam now exceeded 45,000.
31/12/1970,
US Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution (see 7/8/1964), thereby denying President Nixon any further
authority to widen the Vietnam War. Nixon, however, ordered further offensives.
See 27/1/1973.
29/9/1970,
The U.S. Congress gave President Richard Nixon authority to sell arms
to Israel.
29/6/1970,
US troops completed their withdrawal
from Cambodia.
9/5/1970,
Protests in Washington DC, USA, against US intervention in Cambodia.
4/5/1970. 4 students were shot dead at Kent State University, Ohio. There had been a
wave of campus protests over the entry of US troops into Cambodia. On 4/5/1970 between
1,500 and 3,000 students gathered on the campus at Kent University,
contravening an order by Ohio State Governor banning all protests, peaceful or
otherwise. At about midday, the National Guard began to use tear gas to break
up the demonstration. Some of the students picked up the canisters and hurled
them back, and also threw stones. The Guardsmen then opened fire without
warning, killing two male and two female students who were not actually
involved in the demonstration.
12/11/1969, News of
the My Lai massacre (see 16/3/1968) of civilians, by US troops in Vietnam
during the Tet Offensive, was finally broken to a news reporter, Sy Hersh. The
news helped raise further anti-war sentiment in the USA.
15/10/1969, The
biggest anti-Vietnam-War demonstration to date took place in America. The war so far had cost the USA the lives
of 40,000 servicemen, over 8 years.
16/9/1969. President Nixon
announced the withdrawal of a further 36,000 troops from Vietnam by mid-December.
12/9/1969. President Nixon continued B52 bombing raids on Vietnam.
8/6/1969. President Nixon announced that 25,000
US troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of August.
31/10/1968. President
Johnson of the USA ordered a
total halt to US bombing of North Vietnam.
27/10/1968, Violent anti-Vietnam
war protests outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.
10/5/1968. Peace talks began between the USA and North Vietnam in Paris.
The talks failed because North
Vietnam wanted the country unified under the Vietcong, whilst the United States
wanted North Vietnam to withdraw from the South which would remain an
independent state. Eventually the North agreed to Southern independence and the
US agreed not to demand the withdrawal of Communist forces from the North. However the North was to invade the South
two years later as US forces withdrew from the South.
7/4/1968, US President
Johnson ordered a slowdown in the bombing of North Vietnam.
17/3/1968,
Violent anti-Vietnam
War demonstrations outside the US Embassy in London.
17/3/1968,
Violent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations outside the US Embassy in London.
25,000 Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) marchers fought with police. The VSC,
which wanted a victory for North Vietnam, had been organised by the Trotskyist
International Marxist Group, whose members included Pat Jordan, Tariq Ali and
David Horowitz.
16/3/1968. The My
Lai massacre; US soldiers massacred over 500 Vietnamese
civilians in a raid on hamlets in Son My district, where Communist Vietcong
rebels were suspected to be hiding out. US forces believed that 250
Vietcong guerrillas were hiding in My Lai and that all civilians would have
left for market. As the 30 US troops went in under the command of Lieutenant
William Calley they threw grenades and deployed flamethrowers on the
thatched roof huts; it was soon clear that only women, children and the elderly
were present. There was no counter fire. However a ‘contagion of slaughter’ had
set in and the rape and murder continued. Senior US army officials turned a blind
eye to the event; only five people were ever court-martialled, with just one, Lieutenant
Calley, found guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but
served 3 ½ years before release on parole. This event turned many civilians within the US against the Vietnam War.
12/9/1967. Governor
Reagan
called for an escalation of the Vietnam War.
15/4/1967.
100,000 protested against the Vietnam War in New York.
4/4/1967,
Martin
Luther King denounced the Vietnam War.
10/3/1967.
The US bombed industrial targets in North Vietnam.
26/2/1967,
The US stepped up the Vietnam war with an attack
on the Vietcong HQ.
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
26/10/1966.
US President
Johnson visited US troops in Vietnam.
5/7/1966. Dozens
of captured USA airmen in the Vietnam War were paraded through the streets of
Hanoi to shouts of ‘death to the American air pirates’.
3/7/1966.
Anti-Vietnam war protests outside the US Embassy,
London.
23/3/1966.
In New York, 20,000 people marched down Fifth Avenue demanding an end to the Vietnam War.
17/10/1965. Anti-Vietnam War protests in the UK and USA.
28/7/1965. US President Lyndon
Johnson sent a further 50,000 ground troops to Vietnam. The US now had 175,000 troops in Vietnam.
29/6/1965, The first US military ground action began
in Vietnam.
23/4/1965. Heavy US air
raids on North Vietnam.
17/4/1965, US students
protested against US bombing in Vietnam.
4/4/1965. US jets shot
down by North Vietnam.
22/12/1961,
James Davis
became the first US casualty of the war in Vietnam.
11/5/1961, US President
Kennedy sent 400 Special Forces troops to conduct covert
anti-Communist operations in North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
10/12/1971, The John Sinclair Freedom Rally is held at the
University of Michigan. Performers included John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
12/10/1971, Dean Acheson, US statesman, died aged 78.
25/9/1971, Hugo LaFayette Black, US Supreme Court judge
who upheld civil rights, died (born 1886).
30/6/1971. The 26th amendment to
the US constitution was passed, lowering
the voting age from 21 to 18.
17/6/1971, Disneyland admitted its 100-millionth visitor, Valerie Suldo
of New Jersey.
25/4/1971, 200,000 protested in Washington DC against the
Vietnam War. 12,000 protestors were arrested over the following week.
10/2/1971, An earthquake, 6.6 on the Richter Scale, hit Los
Angeles, killing 64 people.
3/2/1971, Andrew Truxal, US academic, died aged 71.
15/8/1969. The
famous American rock festival, Woodstock, began. It was attended by 400,000.
18/7/1969.
Senator Edward Kennedy crashed his car into the Chappaquidick River on the
east coast of the USA. Kennedy escaped but his companion Mary Jo Kopechne
drowned. Kennedy didn’t report the incident for ten hours and was found guilty
of leaving the scene of an accident.
11/6/1969, John Llewellyn Lewis, US Trades Union leader
(born 2/12/1880 in Lucas, Iowa), died.
28/2/1969, Dwight D Eisenhower,
US statesman, died aged 78.
23/2/1969, President Nixon
of the USA began a tour of European capitals.
22/2/1969. President Nixon arrived in Britain
for talks with Prime
Minister Harold Wilson.
22/12/1968, The captain and crew of the Pueblo were
released by the North
Koreans at Panmunjom.
1/7/1968. The USA
and the USSR signed the Non-Proliferation treaty regarding nuclear weapons (see
5/8/1963). This bound its signatories not to transfer nuclear weapons or
knowledge to non-nuclear countries. This
was a recognition that both the USA and the USSR had interests in not assisting
China to become nuclear.
26/6/1968, Earl Warren
announced his resignation as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
5/6/1968. A Jordanian-Arab called Sirhan Bishara Sirhan shot Robert
Kennedy, US Senator (born 1925), in the Hotel Ambassador, Los
Angeles. Kennedy, younger brother of President Kennedy, died 25 hours later.
Sirhan was arrested. He
was protesting against Kennedy’s outspoken support for Israel, on the
first anniversary of the Six Day War.
30/4/1968, Frankie Lymon, US pop star, died of a heroin
overdose.
16/2/1968, The first 911 emergency phone service was inaugurated in
the USA, at Haleyville, Alabama. It was free; other phone calls cost 10 cents.
23/1/1968, The USS
Pueblo, an intelligence ship, and its
89 man crew was seized by North Koreans in the Sea of Japan.
28/8/1967, Death of Charles Darrow, US inventor of the board game Monopoly.
26/3/1967. 10,000 hippies
held a rally in New York's Central Park.
18/2/1967, Robert Oppenheiner, American scientist who developed the US atom bomb, died in Princeton, New Jersey.
3/1/1967, Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged
assassin of President
Kennedy, died of natural causes at a Dallas hospital. Mr Ruby was
awaiting the retrial of his murder case.
1966, The Department of Transportation was
created, and began operations in 1967.
15/12/1966, Walt Disney, US film producer and
leader in animation, died
20/2/1966, Chester Nimitz, American General and Pacific
Fleet Commander in World War II, died in San Francisco, four days
before his 81st birthday.
9/11/1965. A
transmission relay in New York City failed, sparking a domino effect that led
to a blackout across New York State, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
England, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and parts of Pennsylvania and
Ontario.
10/9/1965, Yale
University published a map showing that the Vikings discovered America in the 11th century.
9/9/1965, The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) was established in
the USA
11/6/1965, President Johnson
declared that the promotion of learning
the English language should be a major policy in American foreign aid, and
directed the Peace Corps, the United States Agency for International
Development and other organizations to encourage the such study, in what was
viewed as elevating "the status of English as an international language.
27/9/1964, The Warren
Report was published, stating that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was responsible for the assassination
of President Kennedy.
Conspiracy theorists were not satisfied.
18/7/1964, Race riots in Harlem, New York; start of
the ‘ghetto revolts’.
1/7/1964, Roscoe Pound, US legal scholar, died aged 93.
10/6/1964, The U.S. Senate voted closure of the Civil Rights
Bill after a 75-day filibuster.
5/4/1964, Douglas
MacArthur, American General and commander in the Pacific during
World War Two, died in Washington DC aged 84.
27/3/1964, Powerful
earthquake, magnitude 9.2, hit Alaska, 139 died.
14/3/1964. Jack Ruby, aged 52,
was found guilty in Dallas of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy
(see 22/11/1963). He was sentenced to death but died of a blood clot on the
lung in 1967.
8/2/1964, The Beatles began their
first US tour.
7/2/1964, 25,000 fans gathered at
Kennedy Airport to greet the Beatles on their first visit to America.
13/1/1964. The Beatles entered the US Charts at no. 45 with I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
8/1/1964, In the US, President Johnson proposed a reduction
in defence spending.
11/12/1963, In Los Angeles, Frank Sinatra Jr was set free
after his father paid kidnappers a US$ 240,000 ransom.
24/11/1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President
Kennedy, was himself shot dead by Jack Ruby.
31/8/1963, The ‘hot
line’, linking the Kremlin and the White House, went into operation.
5/8/1963. President Kennedy
signed a Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty in Washington. This treaty forbade testing in the
atmosphere, outer space, or underwater, and was aimed at preventing other
nations than the USA or USSR developing nuclear weapons. However to allow
America and Russia to develop their nuclear weapons, underground testing was
allowed under this treaty (see 1/7/1968).
26/6/1963. President Kennedy made his famous ‘Ich bin
ein Berliner’ speech. He meant to say ‘I am a Berliner’, to indicate US
support for the freedom of West Germany. However what he actually said
translated as ‘I am a doughnut’.
20/6/1963. The White
House and the Kremlin agreed to set up a ‘hot line’.
9/4/1963, Winston Churchill was given honorary US
citizenship.
6/4/1963, Anglo-US Polaris weapons agreement signed.
18/3/1963, In the USA, in Gideon v Wainwright, the Supreme
Court required the State to appoint defence counsel if the defendant could not
afford a private lawyer.
1962, The Baker v
Carr case , in the US Supreme Court; the Court ruled that state electoral
districts must contain approximately equal numbers of voters. This ended rural
domination of state legislatures.
21/12/1962, The US agreed to sell Polaris missiles to the UK.
18/12/1962, PM Harold MacMillan of the UK and President
Kennedy of the USA concluded the Nassau Agreement, at Nassau, Bahamas. This allowed the US navy to provide Polaris
missiles for the Royal Navy, normally operating under NATO command. This
Anglo-US collaboration was resented by General De
Gaulle of France, who saw it as proof that Britain
was not sufficiently European. Within a
month De Gaulle had vetoed UK membership of
the EEC, see 14/1/1963.
5/12/1962, US diplomat Dean Acheson said Britain was 'played out'.
5/11/1962, In the US, elections left Democrats in control of
both Houses.
18/10/1961. A work by Henri Matisse attracted big crowds in the
Museum of Modern
Art in New York. Only after 116,000 people had seen it over 46 days did someone notice it was hung upside-down.
1/3/1961, US President Kennedy formed the Peace Corps, a group of volunteers to
work in less-developed countries.
21/8/1960, David B Steinman, US bridge engineer, died
aged 74.
15/7/1960, In Los Angeles, Kennedy accepted the Democratic
Party nomination for President.
21/6/1960, Kate Brown, Governor of Oregon from 2015, was born.
USA Cold War strategy 1950-61
5/9/1961, The USA announced it would resume
underground nuclear
tests.
5/6/1961, The US Supreme Court ruled that the Communist
Party must register as a foreign-dominated organisation. On 17/6/1961 the US
Communist Party refused to comply with this ruling.
12/7/1960, President Khrushchev of
the USSR asserted that the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was no longer valid; this would legitimate Soviet interference
in the Caribbean. On 14/7/1960 the US confirmed that the Monroe Doctrine
was still in operation.
26/5/1960, At the United Nations in New York, U.S. Ambassador
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. displayed a hand-carved replica of the Great
Seal of the United States that had been presented by the Soviets as a gift to
the American ambassador in Moscow, and
the listening device that had been discovered inside "right under the beak
of the eagle".
24/5/1960, The USA launched the Midas-2 satellite.
Weighing over 2.5 tonnes, its purpose was to test the feasibility of a
satellite system to give early warning of any ballistic missile attack on the
USA.
19/1/1960, President Eisenhower of the USA signed a
Treaty of Mutual Co-operation and Security with Japan in Washington. This confirmed
Japan as an integral member of the anti-Communist alliance.
17/2/1960, Martin Luther King was arrested in the USA.
1959, Click here for image of Washington
DC urban sprawl 1949-59. See also related image London 1932.
16/11/1959. The
Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound
of Music opened on Broadway, New York.
16/10/1959, George Marshall, US soldier and politician who
formulated the Marshall Plan to aid
post-War Europe, died in Washington DC.
9/6/1959. The USA launched its first ballistic missile submarine, the George Washington.
24/5/1959, John Foster Dulles (born 1888), US Secretary of State until his
resignation due to ill-health in April 1959, died from cancer. He was chief
spokesperson for US President Woodrow Wilson
at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. He believed in a robust ‘brinkmanship’
approach to Soviet threats, reinforcing NATO and creating SEATO. He did not get
on with UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden,
disagreeing in particular with the UK’s policy over Suez. He opposed the Anglo-French
invasion of Egypt in late 1956, and sometimes
failed to anticipate Arab nationalist reactions to external intervention.
4/11/1958, In the USA, Democrats won the mid-term elections,
gaining 62 seats in the Senate (Republicans 34 seats). The Democrats gained 281
seats in the House of Representatives
(Republicans 153 seats).
31/5/1958, The Kremlin and Washington agreed to hold
talks on a ban on atmospheric atom bomb tests.
3/5/1958, President Eisenhower proposed a demilitarised
Antarctic.
24/3/1958. Elvis Presley
was sworn in as a US private. He was paid $78 as a regular. He had been given a
60-day deferment to make the film ‘King Creole’.
18/10/1957, Queen Elizabeth II
met US President
Eisenhower; the first
visit by a British monarch to the White House.
30/8/1957, US
senator Strom Thurmond
spoke for 24hrs 27m against civil rights.
31/5/1957, American playwright Arthur Miller was convicted of
contempt of Congress for refusing to name other writers as communists. Miller
confessed his own communist sympathies but said his conscience would not let him
finger others; the judge praised his motives but he could still face a year in
jail.
7/5/1957 Eliot
Ness, the
FBI agent who headed the investigation of Al Capone in Chicago, died.
7/3/1957, The United States Congress approved the Eisenhower Doctrine.
5/1/1957, In the USA, President Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine; that the US will
protect the independence of Middle Eastern States, fearing that the USSR was
behind Arab nationalist movements.
1956, President Eisenhower
signed the Federal Aid Highway Act, to create a US-wide network of
freeways.
25/9/1956, Transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and
the USA became operational.
3/8/1956, The name of Bedloe’s Island, site of the Statue of
Liberty, was changed to Liberty Island, on the approval of President Eisenhower.
14/8/1955, The US schooner Levin J. Marvel capsized and sank in Chesapeake Bay with the loss
of 12 of the 24 people on board.
3/3/1955, Katharine Drexel, US philanthropist, teacher
and Roman
Catholic saint, died aged 96.
24/1/1955, Because of increasing tensions between China and
Formosa (Taiwan), US President Eisenhower asked Congress for
authority to protect Formosa; it was granted within four days by 409 votes to 3
in the House of Representatives.
McCarthyism
2/5/1957. Senator Joe McCarthy, Republican, died of
liver disease. He was most remembered for his ‘witch-hunts’ against suspected Communists.
See 2/12/1954.
2/12/1954, The US Senate voted to condemn McCarthy for abuse of proceedings, see 25/2/1954 and 2/5/1957.
15/6/1954, Senator John McCarthy’s committee labelled Robert
Oppenheimer, inventor of the atom bomb, a security risk because he opposed
development of the Hydrogen Bomb.
22/4/1954, A
committee headed by Senator John
McCarthy, the ‘Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee’, began
hearings into an alleged Communist spy ring at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy’s methods
started alarming hs collaegues.
25/2/1954, President
Eisenhower censured McCarthy (see 9/2/1950) for his bullying tactics.
See 2/12/1954.
12/11/1954,
The immigration centre at Ellis Island, New York, closed. 15 million
migrants into the US had been processed through here since 1892.
25/10/1954,
In the US, meetings of the Cabinet were televised for the first time.
20/7/1954. The Geneva
Agreement ended hostilities between North and South Korea.
12/7/1954, US Vice President Richard Nixon announced the
construction of a network of Interstate Highways which would enable
drivers to cross the USA without encountering a single crossroads or traffic
light. They would also be useful as part of a defensive network, and to provide
rapid exits from cities in the event of war.
10/7/1954, US President Eisenhower signed Public Law 480,
the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, better known as
PL-480. This facilitated the export of grain to US-aligned governments that
were facing threats from Leftist agencies, either internal rebels or
intimidation from a Soviet-aligned State next door. PL-480 could be
used to keep recalcitrant allies, those possibly sliding towards Communism, in
line. For example in 1965 US President Johnson shifted the renewal of
PL-480 food aid to India from an annual to a
monthly basis, threatening India with withdrawal of food aid as India’s
President
Shastri expressed disapproval of US bombing in Vietnam. However if Shastri
abandoned Nehru’s
ideas of land distribution to Indian peasants then India would receive US
agricultural technology, enhancing food yields.
10/6/1954, Charles Adams, US statesman (born 2/8/1866)
died.
4/5/1954, Doug Jones, US politician, was born.
7/4/1954, The USA announced that, in conjunction with Canada, it
would set up a chain of almost 100 radar stations along a 3,000 mile line at
the 55th parallel. On 27/9/1954 a second chain of radfar stations was announced
above the Arctic Circle to warn of enemy aircraft approaching from Russia
across the North Pole. This was the Distant Early Warning Line, of DEW; within
a few years it was obsolete because missiles would be delivered by rockets not
planes.
8/3/1954, The US and Japan signed a mutual defence pact.
18/2/1954 John
Travolta, American film actor, was born in Englewood, New York State.
10/10/1953. President Eisenhower of the USA signed a
treaty with South Korea promising military aid if North Korea attacked.
31/7/1953, Robert Taft, US Conservative politician, died
aged 63.
20/6/1953, The Jewish
funeral service of Ethel and Julius Rosenburg was held at Brooklyn (see 19/6/1953).
The estimated 10,500 who attended were supportive of the Rosenburgs, who were seen as
resisters of American imperialism.
19/6/1953. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg went to the
electric chair in Sing Sing prison, 30 miles north of New York, guilty of
spying for the USSR. They were the first
US civilians to be executed for espionage. They had been condemned on
30/3/1951. Sing Sing prison was built between 1825 and 1828, and took its name
from the local village. However the village soon changed its native-American
derived name to Ossining to avoid association with the prison.
17/4/1953, The actor Charlie Chaplin announced he would never
return to the USA, where he was wanted for back taxes and suspected of being a Communist
sympathiser.
11/4/1953, The US Department of Health and Human Services was
established.
5/2/1953, Walt Disney’s film Peter Pan went on general release.
2/12/1952, US President Eisenhower visited Korea.
31/10/1952, The USA exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll
in the Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 5 to 7 megatons (million tons of
TNT) and left a hole a mile in diameter and 175 feet deep. A 5 megaton bomb
would devastate about 150 square miles by blast and subject about 800 square
miles to searing heat. See 9/9/2003.
25/10/1952, The USA blocked the entry of China to the United Nations for the
third year running. See 25/10/1971.
24/10/1952, In the US, Eisenhower described Korea as ‘the burial
place of twenty thousand Americans’ and promised that if he was elected
President he would end the Korean War. Meanwhile the United Nations remained
deadlocked over the issue of the return of North Korean prisoners of War. The
USSR and China wanted them all returned to North Korea, but some PoWs insisted
they had been forcibly drafted into the North Korean forces and wanted to
settle in South Korea.
19/9/1952, The comedian Charlie Chaplin was labelled ‘subversive’ by
Right-wingers in the USA.
24/7/1952, Charles Copeland, US educationalist, died in
Massachusetts.
25/6/1952, In the US the Immigration Bill was passed, despite
Resident Truman’s veto and a Democrat majority of ten in the Senate. This Bill
established immigration quotas by nationalist, something Truman considered
racist.
2/6/1952, In Youngstown vs Sawyer, the US Supreme Court ruled
that President Truman had gone beyond his powers in ordering the State seizure of the steel industry during a strike.
8/4/1952, In the USA, President Truman ordered the State seizure of
the steel industry in response to a strike. The output of the steel mills was
considered vital for the US forces fighting in Korea. The strike ended in
2/5/1952, but the seizure continued
until after the Supreme Court decision of 2/6/1952..
29/3/1952, In the USA, President Truman announced he would not be
standing for the elections that year.
27/2/1952, The United Nations Building in New York saw
its first session.
1/11/1951, The US tested an atom bomb over the Nevada desert.
5/10/1951, The US House of representatives approved the US$ 56.9 billion Armed
Forces appropriation Bill.
8/9/1951, The San Francisco Treaty of Friendship between the
US and Japan
was signed.
US
involvement in the Korean War
10/7/1951, Ceasefire talks between North and South
Korea began.
15/6/1951, The Korean front line between Northern and Southern
forces was stabilised at around the 38th parallel, where it had been
originally. See 10/7/1951.
11/4/1951. General
MacArthur was relieved of
his command by President Truman, after disagreeing over the conduct
of the Korean War. MacArthur wanted to carry the war over into
Communist China, and bomb Chinese bases
in Manchuria. MacArthur returned to a heroes welcome in Washington, but
did not realise his hopes of nomination for the US Presidential elections.
14/3/1951. US troops recaptured Seoul.
25/1/1951, UN forces halted the advance of the North Koreans
and counterattacked.
1/1/1951, Chinese and North Korean forces advanced through
UN lines and captured Seoul.
28/12/1950. Chinese forces in Korea crossed the 38th parallel.
28/11/1950. China entered the Korean War; 200,000
troops entered Korea across the Yalu River. UN troops were forced back
south again. On 28/12/1950 Chinese forces crossed the 38th parallel.
The West had ignored Chinese threats to intervene if US forces crossed north of
the 38th parallel.
24/11/1950, South Korean forces began an offensive in the Yalu
Valley; China
planned intervention to support the North,
19/10/1950.
US and South
Korean forces captured Pyongyang,
during the Korean War.
9/10/1950.
US forces, having reached the 38th parallel, the old intra-Korean
border, at the end of September, now crossed into North Korea. Warnings from the Indian Prime Minister,
Nehru, that this might provoke Chinese intervention were ignored (see
28/11/1950).
1/10/1950,
South Korean
forces recrossed the 38th parallel.
26/9/1950. US forces recaptured Seoul.
15/9/1950. UN forces landed behind enemy lines at Inchon, North Korea. The South Korean
capital, Seoul, was retaken by the
end of September 1950.
1/9/1950. North Korean forces crossed the Naktong River.
26/7/1950, Britain decided to send troops to Korea.
8/7/1950, US General MacArthur took over UN forces in
Korea.
2/7/1950, American
troops landed in South Korea.
29/6/1950, South Korean forces retook Seoul.
28/6/1950, British Royal navy ships joined the US
forces in South
Korea.
27/6/1950. North Korean forces took Seoul. British forces
joined the war in Korea.
26/6/1950, US President Truman sent US forces to support South Korea.
25/6/1950. Start of the Korean War. North Korea invaded the
South, crossing the 38th parallel, which was the border.
9/7/1951, Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, was jailed for 6 months
for contempt of court after refusing to give testimony that would have helped
trace Communists accused of conspiring against the US.
26/5/1951, Lincoln Ellsworth, American Arctic
and Antarctic
explorer, and scientist, died.
2/4/1951, NATO Allied Command Europe came into being.
30/3/1951. In the USA, the Rosenbergs (Julius and Ethel),
were sentenced to death, having been found guilty of passing atomic secrets to
the Russians
on 29/3/1951.. They were executed on 19/6/1953.
1950, The Defense Production Act was passed, allowing public corporations to
borrow from the US Treasury if national security was at stake.
13/12/1950. Marshall Aid to Britain stopped.
7/11/1950, In US elections, the Republicans gained 30 seats
in the House of Representatives.
1/11/1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo
attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman. Torresola was killed during the
attack, but Collazo
was captured. Collazo
served 29 years in a federal prison, being released in 1979. Don Pedro
Albizu Campos also served many years in a federal prison in Atlanta,
for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government in Puerto Rico
23/9/1950, The US passed the McCarran Act, which set up the Subversive
Activities Control Board. All Communist individuals and organisations had
to be registered, and no current of former member of s Communist of Fascist
organisation could enter the USA. The Board was abolished in 1973.
12/9/1950, Louis A Johnson resigned as US Secretary of
Defence. He was succeeded by George Marshall.
19/7/1950. President Truman asked the US Congress for a
big rise in military spending.
9/2/1950. In the USA, Joseph McCarthy launched an anti-Communist crusade. He claimed he
knew the names of 250 Communists employed within the State Department. See 25/2/1954.
31/1/1950. President Truman told US scientists to make an
H-Bomb.
22/1/1950, In the USA, Alger Hiss, former advisor to President
Franklin Roosevelt, was convicted of perjury for denying contacts to
Soviet agents. Hiss
had liaised with Chambers, editor of Time Magazine and a Communist agent. A
previous trial of Hiss ended in a hung jury; this day he received
5 years in prison. Senator McCarthy used this case to allege that the
US State Department was riddled with Communist agents.
17/9/1949, The first
meeting of NATO was held.
24/8/1949, The North Atlantic Treaty, NATO, came into force.
9/5/1949. Billy Joel, American singer and songwriter,
was born in the Bronx, New York.
4/4/1949. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in
Washington. NATO was set up on 18/3/1949, by Britain and seven other
European countries. Denmark had agreed to join on 25/3/1949. Eleven countries
signed in total.
9/2/1949, US actor Robert Mitchum was jailed for 2 months for
smoking marijuana.
7/1/1949, Marshall was succeeded by Acheson as US Secretary of
State.
16/11/1948, US President Truman refused to participate in
talks with the Soviets on the future of Berlin until the blockade was lifted.
15/10/1948, US President Gerald Ford married widow Elizabeth Bloomer Warren.
2/9/1948, Christa McAuliffe, US teacher who died in the Challenger space
shuttle disaster in 1986, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
2/8/1948, Alger Hiss testified
in the US McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, using the phrase ‘Reds under the
bed’.
15/7/1948. John Pershing, commander of the US Army in
France in World War One, nicknamed ‘Black Jack’, died in Washington DC.
30/4/1948, The
Organisation of American States was set up. The agreement, covering all 21
of the republics in the Americas, was signed at Bogota, Colombia. The
fourteenth state ratified the treaty on 13/12/1951, thereby formally legally
validating the treaty.
19/4/1948, The USA tested
a plutonium bomb at Eniwetok Atoll.
31/3/1948. (1) US Congress passed the Marshall Aid Bill.. On 3/4/1948
President Truman signed the Economic Assistance Act, putting in effect Marshall
aid for 16 countries in war-torn Europe. The first aid shipments to Europe left
the USA on 5/4/1948.
(2) Al Gore,
US Vice President under Bill Clinton, noted for his strong pro-environmental stance, was born.
15/3/1948. US coal miners went on strike for better pensions.
1947, In the US, the
Department of Defense was
established by the National Security Act of 1947. The Department of war and the
Department of tte Navy, which had both existed since 1789, were merged. Until
1949 the new agency was known as the National Military Establishment,
5/10/1947. In the US, President Truman urged Americans to give up
meat on Tuesdays and poultry and eggs on Thursday to aid Europe.
18/9/1947, The Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) was founded, under the 1947 National Security Act.
Created by President
Truman, it was a response to the Cold war with the Soviet Union.
5/6/1947. US Secretary of State George Marshall announced the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover
from near bankruptcy following the
War. See 16/4/1947.
16/4/1947, (1) The phrase ‘Cold War’
was first used, in a speech by Bernard Baruch in Columbia, South Carolina, when
the US Congress was discussing the ‘Truman Doctrine’. This was a doctrine of checking further
Communist expansion into Europe by giving economic and military aid to
governments threatened by communist subversion.
This was followed within 2 months by the Marshall Plan (5/6/1947).
(2) Ammonium
nitrate stored aboard the freighter Grandcamp exploded in Texas City Port,
killing 752.
12/3/1947, US President Truman spoke of a Cold War (see 5/3/1946) against
Communism. He instituted the ‘Truman Doctrine’, whereby the US would give
military and economic access to any countries deemed to be under Soviet threat,
such as Greece or Turkey.
27/2/1947, In the USA, Donald Acheson outlined, in the State
Department, what was to become known as the Truman Doctrine, aimed at
containing Soviet expansion.
21/2/1947. The world’s first soap opera, “A woman to remember”, began on USA television.
4/2/1947, US politician Dan Quayle was born
25/1/1947, Al Capone, American gangster and leader of
organised crime in Chicago during the Prohibition era, died aged 48 due to a
major brain haemorrhage, virtually penniless. In 1931 he was jailed for 11
years income tax evasion; he was released from Alcatraz in 1939, suffering from
syphilis and prematurely aged.
7/1/1947, George Marshall was appointed US Secretary of
State.
5/12/1946. New York was chosen as the permanent site of the
UN.
5/11/1946, In the US, Republicans
gained control of Congress.
23/10/1946, The first New York meeting of the General Assembly
of the United Nations Organisation took place.
28/7/1946, Howard C. Petersen, US Assistant Secretary of
War, announced that, in addition to deaths in combat, 131,028 American and
Filipino citizens, mostly civilians, had died "as a result of war
crimes" from December 7, 1941 until the end of World War II.
23/7/1946, The last German prisoners of war in the United States
were released, as 1,385 POWs were placed on the ship General Yates, following
detention at Camp Shanks in New York. In all, there had been 375,000 German
prisoners kept in the US at the end of World War II.
13/7/1946, The US House of Representatives approved a loan to
Europe.
4/7/1946. The Philippines was granted independence from
the USA. Manual Roxas was elected as
the first President.
17/6/1946, Barry Manilow, American singer and songwriter,
was born in New York City.
18/4/1946. The League
of Nations was formally dissolved, after the United Nations had been set
up on 24/10/1945. See 26/6/1945.
5/3/1946. Winston Churchill referred to an “Iron Curtain” descending
across Europe, in a speech at Fulton, USA. The first public acknowledgement
that the Cold War had begun. See 12/3/1947.
10/2/1946, The first ‘GI brides’ arrived in the USA to live
with their new partners. When US servicemen were stationed in the UK, British
males complained they were ‘overpaid, oversexed, and over here’. Many British
women became engaged or married to them. Now the GI brides assembled at camps
in Hampshire, to be shipped over to the USA aboard the Queen Mary.
29/1/1946, Harry L Hopkins, US government social
administrator, died aged 56.
19/1/1946, Dolly Parton, American Country and Western
singer, was born in Sevierville, Tennessee.
10/1/1946, The League of Nations was officially dissolved,
after 26 years, and replaced by the United Nations.
21/12/1945, US General Patton was killed in a road accident
whilst commanding the 5th US Army in West Germany.
6/12/1945, U.S. General George C. Marshall testified at the Pearl
Harbour inquiry that he did not anticipate the attack but that an
"alert" defence would have prevented all but "limited harm”.
5/12/1945. Five US Navy bombers on a training flight from
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, disappeared over the area later known as the Bermuda Triangle, with 27 crew. When
radio contact with the 5 planes was lost, a 6th plane was sent to
search for them; it too disappeared without trace.
2/12/1945, The Arab
world began a general boycott of Israel, to geographically isolate the country.
The boycott was to cover not just companies trading with Israel or with Israeli
companies but also companies doing business with these companies. In 1977 the
US, under President
Carter, declared it illegal for US companies to participate in this
boycott. In the 1990s Israel insisted upon the dismantling of the boycott,
which was estimated to have cost the country some US$ 40 billion, as part of
the Peace Process. In 2001, however, the Arab League’s Boycott Office resumed
activities as part of its support for the Palestinians during the Intifada.
24/10/1945. The United Nations Charter came into force,
see 18/4/1946.
15/9/1945, Japan was occupied by Allied forces under General
MacArthur. See 28/4/1952, and
14/8/1945.
12/9/1945, An estimate of War casualties reckoned that Britain had lost 420,000 members of
the armed forces; the US had lost 292,000, and the USSR, 13 million. German
loss of military men was put at 3.9 million, Japan’s at 2.6 million. British
civilian casualties from air raids were set at 60,000, with 860,000 severely
injured.
8/9/1945. The USA and
USSR agreed to divide the Korean Peninsula.
4/9/1945, The Japanese garrison on Wake Island formally
surrendered to the USA, see 23/12/1941..
2/9/1945, Formal
surrender of Japan, see 14/8/1945. The Japanese Chief of Staff, General
Yoshijiro Umezo, signed the surrender document on board the USS Missouri, in
front of General McArthur.
28/8/1945. US troops
landed in Japan.
20/8/1945, The US terminated the Lend Lease Act, as
hostilities had ceased Passed by US
Congress in 1941, it offered help to the UK, under attack from the Nazis. However US aid to Europe continued under the
Marshall Plan.
14/8/1945. Japan
surrendered unconditionally. This marked the end of World War II. VJ day was
officially celebrated on the following day, the 15th August. The
Japanese surrender was officially accepted by General Douglas MacArthur on the
US aircraft carrier Missouri on
2/9/1945.
10/8/1945, Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced he was
prepared to surrender unconditionally. The US cancelled plans to drop two
further atoms bombs, scheduled for 13 and 16 August.
9/8/1945 The second atomic bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki. 40,000 were killed here. The intended target, Kokura, was obscured by
cloud.
6/8/1945. The first atomic bomb was dropped, on Hiroshima, Japan, from the B29 bomber Enola Gay. At 8.15 in the morning a
nuclear chain reaction in the bomb built up a temperature of several million
degrees centigrade. In 0.1 milliseconds a fireball at 300,000 degrees
centigrade was created, and this expanded to 250 yards in diameter one second
after detonation. The mushroom cloud reached 23,000 feet into the sky. 78,000
of the city’s population of 300,000 was killed, some instantaneously, by the
blast, some later by the firestorm that the bomb created, and another 90,000
injured, many seriously.
4/8/1945, The US dropped leaflets over Hiroshima, warning that their city was to be obliterated.
29/7/1945, Japan
rejected a US ultimatum to surrender. The US estimated that 1 million
Allied casualties would ensue from a land invasion of Japan.
16/7/1945. The atom
bomb, produced at Los Alamos,
was tested at Alamogordo airbase in the desert of New Mexico. See 8/3/1950.
25/6/1945. The Charter
for the United Nations was drawn up in San Francisco, and signed by 50
countries. This was the successor to the League of Nations. See 18/4/1946.
22/6/1945. US troops captured Okinawa.
8/5/1945. VE Day. The
Second World War officially ended in Europe, at one minute past midnight. Field
Marshall Keitel signed the final capitulation.
5/5/1945. Elsie Mitchell and the five children she was
looking after were killed in Oregon by a Japanese
balloon bomb. They ware the only
people killed in enemy action on the US mainland during World War Two.
25/4/1945, US and Soviet forces met on the Elbe near Torgau.
24/4/1945, Himmler offered to surrender the German Reich to
the governments of Great Britain and the USA.
19/4/1945, US forces took Leipzig; the city was later handed to the Soviet sector, East
Germany.
18/4/1945, US troops under General Patton entered
Czechoslovakia.
17/4/1945. US troops captured the Buchenwald concentration
camp.
1/4/1945, The Battle of Okinawa
began as US troops landed on the island. US victory came 83 days later.
23/3/1945. The US 2nd Army crossed the Rhine. By
20/4/1945 British troops had advanced 200 miles into Germany.
16/3/1945, Iwo Jima was totally occupied by US forces;
4,590 US soldiers were killed, out of a force of 30,000 attacking 23,000
Japanese who were heavily dug in with underground bunkers. See 19/2/1945. Iwo
Jima, just 750 miles from Tokyo, could now be used as a base to bomb some 66
Japanese cities in an attempt to force a Japanese surrender.
4/3/1945, US General McArthur returned to the Philippines,
fulfilling a promise that ‘we shall return’ he made in 1942 when advancing
Japanese troops forced him to flee on a torpedo boat.
19/2/1945, US forces began the invasion of Iwo Jima, see
16/3/1945.
16/2/1945. (1) US Air Force began heavy raids on Tokyo.
(2) The US took Bataan,
Philippines.
4/2/1945. The Yalta
Conference between the Allied leaders Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
opened in the Crimea. This conference concluded on 11/2/1945. Churchill,
Roosevelt, and Stalin all had very different aims. Roosevelt wanted to
disengage US troops from Europe to defeat Japan. Stalin wanted to extend Soviet influence as far west into Europe as
possible. Stalin got to occupy eastern Poland, as agreed in Tehran on
28/11/1943. Churchill wanted to build a democracy from the ruins of Germany.
The ailing Roosevelt trusted Stalin’s assurance that he would work to build a
‘peaceful and democratic world’. The West insisted that Greece be given a
western-style democracy, but otherwise all of eastern Europe fell under the
Soviet sphere. Stalin also gained Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands in return for
a war effort against Japan that was never made. Yalta set the world order for
the next 45 years.
3/2/1945. (-94) The US recaptured Manila, which had
fallen to the Japanese on 2/1/1942. Manila was not totally cleared of Japanese
soldiers till 24/2/1945.
9/1/1945. Luzon in the Philippines was taken by the
US from the Japanese.
4/1/1945, Severe Kamikaze attacks on US ships.
3/1/1945, The Dies
Committee (see 26/5/1938), formed to monitor activities by Nazis and
Communists within the USA, was given permanent status as the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC)
See also China/Japan/Korea
for World War Two in Pacific
22/12/1944, An American unit was surrounded at Bastogne by the
German advance in the Battle of the
Bulge. The unit held out until
relieved on 26/12/1944. Inside Bastogne, General Anthony C McAuliffe received a message
from the besieging Germans inviting him to surrender; his reply, scrawled on
the surrender invite, was one word
-“NUTS”.
25/11/1944, The first Kamikaze (divine wind) suicidal attacks
were made by Japanese pilots on US ships.
24/11/1944. US planes
bombed Tokyo, for the first time since 18/4/1942.
27/10/1944, The Japanese fleet suffered a crushing defeat in
the Battle of Leyte Gulf,
effectively ending its role as a fighting force. This was the world’s largest naval battle,
which began on 22/10/1944, involving a total of 231 ships and 1996 aircraft.
20/10/1944. General Mac Arthur returned to the Philippines
as liberator with 250,000 troops, fulfilling a promise ha made when his forces
retreated from the Japanese.
7/10/1944, The Dumbarton Oaks Conference ended.
21/8/1944, Meetings began at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, on
starting the Charter of the United
Nations. These meetings ended on
7/10/1944.
21/7/1944, Guam,
in the western Pacific, was liberated by US Marines. It had been under Japanese occupation since
December 1941.
20/7/1944. Tbe USA began to retake the island of Guam from the Japanese.
19/7/1944, Leghorn retaken by American forces.
26/6/1944, Naval fighting between the USA and Japan off the
Marianas Islands.
19/6/1944, The USA took Saipan. It took over three weeks to defeat the
Japanese, at a cost of 3,000 Americans dead and 17,000 wounded; 27,000 Japanese
also died. The US did not attempt to
capture all Pacific islands in their path to Japan, only selected ones, leaving
other heavily-armed islands to ‘wither on the vine’. The Japanese fought fiercely and had no fear
of death; many ‘Banzai’-charged the US soldiers, led by officers wielding
swords.
13/6/1944. Fifteen US warships bombarded Saipan with 165,000
shells. Saipan, with Tinian (see 1/8/1944), was a small Pacific island halfway
between Australia and Japan, occupied by the Japanese. 8,000 US marines landed
on Saipan on 15/6/1944; Japanese troops hid in caves but were attacked with
flame throwers. On 7/7/1944 3,000 cornered Japanese troops, along with hundreds
of civilians jumped to their death rather than surrender.
8/5/1944, Eisenhower settled on 5, 6, or 7 June as date
for the D-Day landings
24/4/1944. The Japanese evacuated New Guinea as US troops
landed.
29/2/1944. US troops landed at Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands.
15/2/1944, The US cleared the Solomon Islands of Japanese
forces.
14/2/1944, Carl Bernstein, the journalist who exposed the
Watergate scandal along with Bob Woodward, was born.
16/1/1944, General Eisenhower was appointed Supreme
Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.
1943, The Pentagon was completed
to house the offices of the US Department of War (see 1947).
17/12/1943, US President Roosevelt repealed the Chinese
Exclusion Acts of 1882 and 1902, and signed the Chinese Act. This made Chinese
residents of the US eligible for naturalisation, and allowed an annual
immigration of 105 Chinese.
28//11/1943. The main
Allied leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, all met in Tehran.
Co-ordinating the Normandy landings with a Russian attack on the eastern front
was discussed, also a Russian attack on Japan, and a post-war United Nations
Organisation. All agreed that the USSR could have eastern Poland as far west as
the Curzon line, and Poland would be compensated with lands in eastern Germany.
This was confirmed at the Yalta Conference of 4 – 11 February 1945.
23/11/1943. US forces retook Makin in the Gilbert Islands.
3/11/1943. US miners ended a 6 month strike.
9/6/1943, US Congress approved the Pay as You Go scheme for
deducting income tax from salaries.
1/6/1943, The close of the Hot Springs Conference (opened
18/5/1943); the Allies discussed World War Two.
26/5/1943, Edsel Ford, president of the Ford Motor Company from 1919, died.
13/3/1943, J P Morgan Jnr, US financier, died aged 75.
9/3/1943. Bobby Fischer,
chess champion, was born in Chicago. He took the world title from Boris Spassky
in 1972.
9/2/1943. The USA reported that Japanese resistance in
Guadacanal and the Solomon Islands had ceased.
15/1/1943. The
Pentagon, built to house the US
Defence Department, opened in Arlington, Virginia, on the Potomac River.
14/1/1943. Churchill, de Gaulle,
and Roosevelt met at Casablanca. They
demanded the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. Plans were made for the invasion of Sicily
increased US bombing of Germany, and the transfer of British forces to the far
east once Germany was defeated.
16/12/1942, Donald Carcieri, US politician, governor of Rhode Island, was
born.
28/11/1942, 492 died in a fire at Cocoanut Grove nightclub,
Boston, USA.
10/11/1942, William Crozet, US artillery expert, died.
17/6/1942, President Roosevelt met with Winston
Churchill in Washington to discuss war production and military
strategy.
8/6/1942. (1) Battle
of Midway Island (4-8 June). The Japanese withdrew after 4 days of
shelling. See 27/5/1942. The Japanese ability to mount strategic attacks in the
Pacific was effectively ended. The US lost 500 men, the Japanese lost 3,500
men.
(2) Churchill
arrived in Washington for talks with Roosevelt.
7/6/1942, The US aircraft carrier Yorktown was sunk by the
Japanese at Midway Island.
6/6/1942, The US and Japan both lost one destroyer each at
Midway.
5/6/1942, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto realised the surprise factor
had failed and ordered a withdrawal from Midway.
3/6/1942, The Japanese launched a diversionary attack on the
Aleutians but did not draw US forces away from Midway.
2/6/1942, Task forces 16 and 17 rendezvous 350 miles north
east of Midway.
30/5/1942, US Task Force 17 set sail from Pearl Harbour to
join Task force 16 against the Japanese at Midway Island,
29/5/1942. Bing Crosby recorded the bestseller White Christmas for the soundtrack of
the film Holiday Inn.
28/5/1942, US Task Force 16 sailed to intercept the Japanese
fleet bound for Midway Island.
27/5/1942, A Japanese fleet left Japan on operation M.1, the
capture of Midway Island. They hope
to repeat the surprise factor of Pearl Harbour; however the US had cracked the Japanese radio codes and were ready,
see 8/6/1942
18/4/1942, US planes bombed Tokyo and other Japanese
cities; the ‘Doolittle Raids’. See 24/11/1944.
21/3/1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order
9066. This established the War
Relocation Authority, to move Japanese in the US away from the west coast.
Some 110,000 Japanese in the US were interned in WRA camps, although most of
the 150,000 Japanese in Hawaii were not interned.
3/3/1942, The USA declared the West Coast a military area
and evacuated some 100,000 civilians.
24/2/1942, Joe Lieberman,
US politician, was born.
23/2/1942, Lend Lease was made reciprocal between the USA and
Britain.
10/2/1942, American bandleader Glen Miller was presented with a
gold record of his popular tune ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’; the tune was the first
to hit one million sales.
27/1/1942, Jacqueline Cochrane, US aviatrix, flew a US bomber
to the UK, for raids against Germany.
26/1/1942, American troops landed in Northern Ireland.
25/1/1942, Siam (Thailand) declared war on Britain and the
USA. The USA did not declare war on
Siam. Many Thai sympathised with the
Allied side.
17/1/1942, Muhammad Ali, American boxer, was born in
Louisville, Kentucky, as Cassius Clay.
23/12/1941, Wake Island (US territory) surrendered to the
Japanese, see 4/9/1945.
11/12/1941. Hitler
declared war on the USA, as did Italy, even though he had not yet
conquered Russia or invaded Britain. The USA declared war on Germany and Italy.
See also China/Japan/Korea
for World War Two in Pacific
See also France-Germany
(from 1/1/1870) for main events of World War Two in Europe
8/12/1941. Britain and
the USA declared war on Japan. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti, and the
Dominican Republic also declared war on Japan, and China declared war on all
the Axis powers. Britain declared war on Finland, Rumania, and Hungary. Siam (Thailand) agreed to the passage of
Japanese forces through its territory to attack British Malaya.
7/12/1941. Japanese
attack on the USA fleet in Pearl
Harbour, Hawaii. Pearl Harbour
was taken entirely by surprise and within 2 hours 360 Japanese warplanes had
destroyed 5 battleships, 14 smaller craft, and 200 aircraft. 2,400 people, many
of them civilians, were killed. However the Japanese failed to find and destroy
America’s all-important aircraft carriers, both of which were away on manoeuvres.
The Japanese force then turned west to strike the British in the East Indies,
Australia, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The US Congress met to declare war in
emergency session on 8/12/1941,
much to the
relief of Britain.
6/12/1941. Roosevelt
appealed to Hirohito to avoid a war with the
USA.
1/12/1941. The Japanese
Emperor ratified the decision to go to war with the USA.
3/11/1941. President Roosevelt
was warned by the US Ambasador to Tokyo of a possible Japanese attack on the
USA.
11/10/1941, The Japanese
Government approved plans for an attack on Pearl Harbour.
8/10/1941. The US civil rights leader and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson
was born in Greenville, North Carolina.
26/9/1941, The US
proclaimed an embargo on steel and scrap iron exports to Japan, with effect
from 16/10/1941.
9/9/1941, Churchill met Roosevelt in Placentia Bay,
Newfoundland.
26/7/1941, Britain and the USA froze Japanese assets.
11/4/1941, Former US President Herbert Hoover said the USA must
stay out of the war in Europe.
10/4/1941. The USA
sent troops to Greenland to protect arms supply lines from the USA to Britain.
22/3/1941, The Grand
Coulee Dam, on the Columbia River, Washington State, began operating.
11/3/1941. In the
USA, the Lend Lease Bill became law. In May 1940 Churchill had asked
President Roosevelt for both arms and financial assistance in the war, which
the USA was not to enter as a combatant until Pearl Harbour on
7/12/1941. Roosevelt was sympathetic to the British cause but had three
obstacles to face. 1) Congress was isolationist, and Roosevelt did not wish to
do anything to jeopardise his re-election prospects before November 1940. 2)
The neutrality Act had to be amended to allow Britain and France to purchase
arms for cash; this was done in November 1939. 3) The Johnson Act, 1934,
forbade loans to any country defaulting on its loans, and Britain had still not
paid back money it borrowed during World War One. In May 1940 Roosevelt
authorised Congress to release from ordnance stores 500,000 WW1 rifles and 900
75mm field guns. In September 1940 Roosevelt provided Britain with 50 old
destroyers in return for 99 year leases on British islands in the Caribbean and
Newfoundland. In December 1940 Churchill requested American protection of
Atlantic convoys and financial assistance to purchase further American arms.
Roosevelt was advised that Britain had less than US$2 billion to meet arms
purchases of US$ 5billion. Roosevelt coined the term ‘lend lease’, on the
analogy of a neighbour who lends his hose if the house is on fire.
6/3/1941. Gutzon Borglum,
American sculptor noted for his work on the Mount Rushmore heads of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln,
and Theodore Roosevelt, died.
6/1/1941. Roosevelt
sent the Lend Lease Bill to Congress. Congress agreed the Bill on 11/3/1941.
4/1/1941. The German-born actress Marlene Dietrich became a US
citizen.
17/12/1940, US President Franklin Roosevelt proposed ‘Lend Lease’ for
Britain.
7/11/1940. Britain, the USA, and Australia agreed on the
defence of the Pacific.
16/10/1940, The first lottery to select US citizens for the
military draft began; 158 were drawn this day.
27/9/1940. Imperial Japan signed a 10-year military and
economic alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. This was greatly
disturbing to both the USSR and the USA; Japan and Russia had been enemies
since the 1905 war, and Hitler’s alliance with Russia, signed in 1939, was looking more uncertain.. The USA now realised that entering the war
on the side of the Allies would now entail a war in the Pacific.
20/7/1940. The first singles charts were published in the US
journal Billboard.
15/5/1940. Nylon
stockings went on sale for the first time, in America. In New York. Alone,
72,000 pairs were sold in the first eight hours.
26/2/1940, The United States Air Defense Command was created,
to provide co-ordinated air defence for the USA.
7/2/1940, Disney’s film Pinocchio was given a gala premiere in New York.
8/12/1939, As the UK began a naval blockade of Germany, the
US protested at restrictions on international free trade.
23/11/1939, In the USA, Thanksgiving Day was now celebrated
this Thursday, the 4th Thursday in the month, rather than the 30th, the last Thursday as previous years. The
retail lobby had persuaded President Roosevelt to make the change so as
to lengthen the Christmas Shopping season by a week.
4/11/1939. President Roosevelt announced he would amend
the Neutrality Act to allow Britain and France to buy arms from the USA. Roosevelt hoped this would avoid direct US
involvement in the war.
18/10/1939, Lee Harvey Oswald, American assassin, was born
in New Orleans.
13/10/1939, Hitler made an unsuccessful attempt to
persuade US
President Roosevelt to mediate a peace between Germany, France and
Britain.
5/9/1939. President Roosevelt declared the USA neutral in
World War Two.
2/8/1939, Albert Einstein wrote to US President Franklin D Roosevelt
urging him to commit to research into the possibility of atomic bombs.
28/7/1939, William James Mayo,
US surgeon and co-founder of the Mayo
Clinic, died aged 78.
30/4/1939, The World Fair in
New York opened. It was opened by President Franklin D Roosevelt, who became the
first US President to appear on TV, as NBC began their TV news service this
day.
14/4/1939, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was published.
1/4/1939, The USA recognised Franco’s government in Spain.
31/10/1938. A radio broadcast of H G Well’s War of the Worlds caused widespread
panic because of its vivid realism. The adaptation of the play carried a
warning that it was not for real but this warning was not broadcast until 40
minutes after the play had begun. Terrified Americans packed the roads, hid in
cellars, loaded guns, and wrapped their heads in wet towels to protect
themselves against Martian poison gas. The event proved both the power of mass
media and the American capacity for hysteria.
26/5/1938, The Dies
Committee was established by the US House of Representatives. Named after
its Chairman, Martin Dies, its remit
was to investigate ‘Un-American’ activities by Nazis and Communists within the
USA. See 3/1/1945.
14/1/1938, Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full length colour and
sound animated cartoon, went on general release across the USA.
21/12/1937. Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full length colour and sound
animated cartoon was premiered in Los Angeles, USA.
1/6/1937, Morgan Freeman, US actor, was born.
6/1/1937, In the USA, President Roosevelt forbade shipments of arms
to either side in Spain.
1936, In the US, the
Rural Electrification Administration
(REA) was established. Riral telephone lines were also developed by the REA
from 1949.
30/12/1936, Striking workers in the USA closed 7 General
Motors plants.
12/11/1936, The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened.
29/2/1936. President Roosevelt signed a second neutrality
bill, banning loans to countries at war.
4/1/1936, The first
pop music chart was compiled, based on record sales published in New York
in The Billboard.
10/9/1035, Huey Pierce Long, Louisiana politician, was
shot dead in Baton Rouge. He had opposed
‘lying newspapers’ and got the Louisiana legislature to impose a tax on any
newspaper with a circulation of over 20,000.
31/8/1935, In the USA, President Roosevelt banned arms sales to
warring countries.
14/8/1935. President Roosevelt signed the Social Security
Bill, introducing welfare for the old, sick, and unemployed.
10/6/1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in the United
States by Bill
Wilson and Dr Robert Smith.
21/5/1935, Death of Jane Addams (born 6/9/1860). She founded Hull
House, a mission to help poor immigrants in the US. She was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1931 for her efforts to promote pacifism after World War One.
6/3/1935, Oliver Wendell Jr, US Supreme Court Justice,
died in Washington DC.
8/1/1935. Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi,
the surviving brother of twins.
8/9/1934, The luxury liner Morro Castle caught fire off New Jersey, killing 134.
20/8/1934. The USA joined the International Labour Organisation.
7/8/1934, A US Appeal Court upheld a judge’s ruling to allow
James Joyce’s work, Ulysses, to be
sold in the USA.
22/7/1934, Bank robber John Dillinger was killed in an FBI ambush in
Chicago.
9/6/1934. Donald Duck
was created, in Walt Disney’s cartoon The
Little Wise Hen. Walt Disney was born in Chicago on 5/12/1901.
23/5/1934. Bank robbers Bonnie Parker (23) and Clyde Barrow (25) were shot dead
in an ambush by Texas rangers near Gibland, Alabama. Clyde met Bonnie in the
café where she worked. She chose a life of excitement, drama, and danger, when
she married the convict Clyde. She drove his getaway car as he robbed banks. A
total of 12 people had died in their raids across the south western USA over
the past 4 years. In 1930 Clyde was arrested but he escaped with Bonnie’s help
and returned to bank robbery. After the death of the pair, people paid to see
their bodies in the State morgue.
17/5/1934, Cass Gilbert, the US architect who designed
many of New York’s skyscrapers, including the Woolworth Building, died.
26/4/1934, US railway companies averted a strike by reaching
a settlement to gradually roll back the 10% pay cut imposed on the workers two
years earlier.
18/4/1934. The first
launderette opened in Fort Worth, Texas, by J F Cantrell. It was called a
washeteria.
25/3/1934, The threatened US car workers' strike was averted
when the Roosevelt
administration created a National Automotive Labor Board to help resolve
disputes
24/3/1934. The USA promised it would grant independence to the
Philippines.
5/2/1934, Rioting broke out in the streets of New York over
the cab driver strike as strikers fought with police and burned independent
cabs.
16/11/1933, The USA
established diplomatic relations with the USSR for the first time since the Russian
Revolution.
7/11/1933, LaGuardia was
elected Mayor of New York; he served until 1045.
31/10/1933, The
carvings of the four heads of Presidents at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, was completed.
30/9/1933, US President Franklin D Roosevelt announced the US$ 700
million New Deal for the poor.
6/6/1933. The first drive – in cinema opened in
Camden, New Jersey, with room for 400 cars.
27/5/1933, The ‘Century of World Progress’ Fair opened in
Chicago.
22/5/1933. President Roosevelt appointed Harry Hopkins
as the administrator of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. This was
to give aid and work to the destitute in the USA as the 1930s Depression deepened. 29/10/1929 was the date of the Wall
Street Crash.
24/4/1933, Felix Adler, US educationalist (born
13/8/1851) died.
12/3/1933, In the US, President Roosevelt made the first of his
‘fireside chats’ by radio to the people. He assured people that the banks were
safe for depositing savings.
9/3/1933, In the
US, the holding of gold bullion by private citizens was made illegal by the Emergency Banking Relief Act. This was
a measure to ensure that all gold in the US was available to back the US Dollar
during the Depression.
4/3/1933. President Franklin D Roosevelt
was inaugurated in the USA. In the midst of the Depression, with banks closing,
he said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”.
23/1/1933, The US, under the 20th Amendment,
moved the Inauguration Day of its Presidents from 4 March to 23 January. The
aim was to reduce the ‘lame duck’ period of an outgoing President.
7/9/1932, J Paul Getty II, US philanthropist, was born.
9/7/1932. King Camp Gillette, American inventor of the
safety razor and blade, died.
16/7/1932, Rioting broke out in front of the White House by
members of the Bonus Army who still refused to leave the capital. Contrary to
tradition, President
Hoover did not attend the final day of the 72nd Congress before
adjourning until December due to safety concerns.
8/3/1932. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the New Hampshire
presidential primary
7/3/1932, 5,000 unemployed workers
laid off by the Ford Motor Company marched through Detroit to
demand relief payments. As the unarmed crowd got near Gate 4 of the River Rouge
Ford Plant at Dearborn, armed police and security giards stormed out of the
plant and fired on the workers, killing five.
1/3/1932, The 20-month old son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped
from the nursery of their home in Hopwell, New Jersey. He was found dead on
12/5/1932. Bruno
Hauptmann was convicted of the crime and electrocuted.
22/2/1932. Edward Kennedy, American senator and younger
brother of President
Kennedy, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts.
24/10/1931. Al Capone, 32, Chicago gang boss of the
Prohibition era, was jailed for 11 years for tax evasion. He was also fined
US$80,000. He was released in 1939 and died on 25/1/1947 of a brain
haemorrhage.
4/10/1931. Richard Rorty, US philosopher, was born (died
2007).
1/10/1931, The
Waldorf Astoria, on Park Avenue, New York, opened. It was the world’s largest commercial hotel
building.
17/9/1931. 33 1/3 rpm
LP records were released in the USA.
They were demonstrated at the Savoy Plaza Hotel, New York.
31/7/1931, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, home of the Cleveland
Indians, opened. It was the largest
baseball stadium in the world.
22/6/1931. In The USA, President Hoover suggested that German war
reparations be suspended for a year to stimulate world trade.
19/3/1931, Indigestion aid Alka-Seltzer went on sale in the USA.
18/3/1931, The US company Schick Inc started to manufacture electric razors.
3/3/1931. The song, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, became
the American National Anthem.
30/12/1930, The Colonial National Monument in Virginia was
proclaimed by President
Hoover.
6/12/1929, US marines were sent to Haiti to quell a revolt
there.
3/12/1929, President Hoover delivered his first State of
the Union speech to Congress.
23/9/1929, The $1.5 million, 21,000-seat St. Louis Arena
opened.
28/7/1929, Jacqueline Onassis, widow of President
Kennedy, was born in Southampton, New York State, as Jacqueline Lee
Bouvier.
14/2/1929. The St
Valentines Day Massacre took place in Chicago. Seven members of Bugsy Moran’s
gang were machine-gunned to death by a rival gang.
13/1/1929, Wyatt Earp, American lawman and hero of the OK
Corral, died peacefully aged 81.
1928, Roosevelt,
future US President, was elected Governor of New York.
7/12/1928, Noam Chomsky, US social scientist, was born.
19/9/1928. The first cartoon talking picture, Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, with Mickey Mouse
(originally called Mortimer Mouse), was shown in New York.
6/7/1928, The first all-talking feature film, Lights of
New York, was presented at The Sound Theatre, New York.
13/3/1928, In Los Angeles, 450 died when a dam burst.
21/1/1928, George Washington Goethals, American, chief engineer of the Panama Canal, died.
3/1/1928, US troops went to Nicaragua to fight the Sandinistas.
7/8/1927, The Peace
Bridge opened between Canada and the USA.
21/1/1927, Telly Savalas, American film actor who played
‘Kojak’, was born in Garden City, New York.
19/6/1925, Bank robber Everett Bridgewater and two accomplices were
arrested in Indianapolis, Indiana.
3/6/1926, Allan Ginsberg, US poet, was born.
13/1/1929, Wyatt Earp, American lawman and hero of the OK
Corral, died peacefully aged 81.
10/10/1925, James Buchanan Duke, US industrialist, (born
in Durham, North Carolina, 23/12/1856) died in New York.
26/7/1925, William Jennings Bryan, US Democratic Party
orator and prosecutor in the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’, born 19/3/1860 in Salem,
Illinois, died in Dayton, Tennessee.
3/6/1925, Tony Curtis, US actor, was born.
26/5/1925, George Adams, US historian (born 3/6/1851)
died.
31/3/1925, The Philadelphia Daily News began publication.
26/5/1924. The US cut immigration quotas from an annual 3% of
the number of that nationality already in the US (enacted 1921) to 2%, and
excluded Japanese citizens entirely. Japan protested.
10/4/1924. The first crossword
puzzle book was published in New
York.
3/9/1923, The US recognised the Mexican government.
27/5/1923. Henry Kissinger, American Secretary of State,
was born in Furth, Germany. Kissinger shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Le Duc
Thuo for their part in ending the Vietnam War.
19/4/1923, The Yankee Stadium, new York, opened.
3/3/1923. The US magazine Time
was first published. Republican-leaning,
the magazine was to condense the news for time-pressed
Americans, and could be distributed by rail in a country with no true
national newspaper.
10/1/1923, The last US
troops left Germany.
22/12/1922, New York’s last
horse-drawn fire engine was taken out of ervice.
7/11/1922. In US Congressional elections, the Republican
majority was reduced.
10/9/1922, Bernard Bailyn, US historian, was born.
15/8/1922, End of a coal strike in the USA (began 1/4/1922).
20/3/1922. President Harding recalled US troops from the
Rhineland.
4/3/1922, In the USA the ‘Teapot Dome’ scandal emerged. Secretary of the Interior Albert B Fall
resigned as a Senate Committee investigated alleged unlawful leasing of
Government oil reserves and other matters. In 1929 Fall was sentenced to 1 year in
prison, also fined.
6/2/1922, The Limitation of Armaments Conference at
Washington ended.
5/2/1922. The Readers
Digest was first published, in the USA.
22/12/1921, US Congress set aside US$ 20 million for food aid
to starving children in the USSR.
12/11/1921, The Limitation of Armaments Conference began in
Washington.
25/8/1921. Peace treaty (Treaty
of Berlin) signed between Germany and the USA.
11/8/1921, Alex Hailey, US author of Roots, was born.
19/5/1921. The USA introduced quotas for immigration, setting these at 3% of the each nationality
in the US as it was in 1910. This favoured the British, Irish, Scandinavians,
and Germans, and worked against the southern Europeans and Asians. The measure
was backed by organised labour, worried about unemployment, by reformers
worried about the poverty and slums in the US, and by those who felt that the
Asian races were inferior to Europeans.
12/4/1921, US President Harding
rejected joining the League of Nations.
10/12/1920, Woodrow Wilson
and Leon Bourgeois
were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
7/12/1920, US
President Woodrow Wilson
made his State of the Union speech.
9/11/1920, Philip Hodge, US engineer, was born.
16/10/1920, US Marines killed the Haitian rebel leader.
16/9/1920, A bomb exploded at the JP Morgan bank, killing 30
and injuring 100.
26/8/1920. Under the 19th Amendment,
women received the vote in the USA.
5/7/1920, In the US, the Democratic Convention nominated James M Cox
for Presidency and F D Roosevelt for Vice-Presidency.
19/3/1920. The US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of
Versailles, and the US refused to join the League of Nations.
12/3/1920, Edward P. McCabe, African-American land agent
who sought to make the Oklahoma Territory into a majority black state, died
aged 69.
16/1/1920.
Prohibition began in the USA (18th Amendment), and the sale, manufacture, or
involvement with alcohol was banned.
See also Morals and Fashion for more details on
Prohibition.
5/1/1920. Radio
Corporation of America was formed for world-wide broadcasting.
2/1/1920. Major US crackdown on suspected Communists began. The ‘Palmer
Raids’ in over 30 cities across the USA resulted in the arrest of almost
3,000 anarchists, communists and other radicals. These raids were the idea of
Attorney-General A Mitchell Palmer. The raids were controversial;
some protested at the disregard for civil liberties, but some on the Right
wanted those detained to be executed. Palmer himself, a Democrat, lost the
Presidential nomination in late 1920 but
maintained he had foiled a Bolshevik plot to overthrow the US Government.
27/11/1919. A large meteor landed in Lake Michigan.
11/11/1919, Death of Andrew Carnegie, US steel magnate and
philanthropist. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on 25/11/1835, his family moved
to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when Andrew was 13. \he gave considerable sums to
education and set-up the Carnegie Endowment for International Pece.
13/10/1919. Dock strike in New York.
2/10/1919, US President
Wilson suffered a massive stroke, leaving his left side paralysed.
22/9/1919. Major steel strike in the USA.
9/9/1919, Boston, USA, police went on strike over low pay.
Just 427 of the former 1,544 man force remained on duty, and crime soared. The
militia were called in and the strikers sacked.
31/8/1919. The US
Communist Party was founded.
11/8/1919, Andrew Carnegie died aged 83 at his Berkshire
Hills, Massachusetts, mansion. Out of his fortune, he had given away US$ 350
million in philanthropic donations.
19/7/1919, Race riots in Washington DC.
15/3/1919, Delegates from the American Expeditionary Force
founded the American Legion Organisation
of Veterans, to support veteran’s welfare.
11/2/1919, The Overman
Committee was set up in the US, and played a crucial role in constructing
image of the Red Radical Soviet’ threat to the US. It was a precursor to the
HUAC (House Committee of Un-American Activities).
3/2/1919, US President Woodrow Wilson attended the first meeting of
the League of Nations in Paris.
15/1/1919, A tank containing 8.7 million litres of warm molasses in Boston, USA, burst. A
5-metre high wave of molasses swept through the docks area at 60 mph, wrecking
buildings. 21 people were killed and 150 injured. Many died as the molasses
cooled and became more viscous, suffocating its victims.
14/12/1918, President
Woodrow Wilson arrived in Paris for peace talks.
11/11/1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and
Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29/9/1918. Church bells
rang out across Britain in celebration. The Allies had not expected such a
sudden collapse of Germany; in September 1918 they were planning campaigns for
1919. However General Ludendorff was shaken by the sudden Allied advance (see
8/8/1918) and begged Kaiser Wilhelm to seek an armistice immediately. The
Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch’s railway carriage, near Compiegne. Warsaw became the capital of a restored
Polish State. The armistice required Germany to relinquish 5,000 heavy guns,
30,000 machine guns, 2,000 aircraft, all U-boats, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 wagons and 5,000 lorries. The surface
fleet was to be interned (see 21/11/1918), the Allies were to occupy the
Rhineland, and the blockade of German ports would continue. World War One cost
9 million lives, with a further 27 million injured. Britain alone had lost
750,000 men, and a further 200,000 from the Empire, with another 1.5 million
seriously injured. The War had cost the Allies an estimated US$ 126 billion,
and the Central Powers a further US$ 60 billion. Britons now celebrated, and wages
rose, although higher food prices eroded some of those gains. Women, at least
those over 30, finally had the vote, and smoking, gambling and movies boomed,
with Charlie Chaplin as movie star.
The US was the greatest beneficiary
of the War. US losses amounted to 53,000 men, a small number compared to
8,500,000 casualties of the European combatants. US industry had become more
efficient, and key sectors such as chemicals had learned to do without Europe;
the US aviation industry had been transformed. Economically, The US had needed
European capital before 1914; by 1918 Europe owed the US some US$ 10,000
million.
29/9/1918. Allied troops
captured part of the Hindenburg Line. Ludendorff called for an armistice to
avert a catastrophe for Germany.
Negotiations opened with President Woodrow Wilson of the USA on
4/10/1918 but fighting continued till 11/11/1918.
15/8/1918. The US severed diplomatic relations with the
Bolshevik government of Russia.
4/6/1918, Charles Warren Fairbanks, US statesman, died
in Indianapolis, Indiana (born 11/5/1852 in Ohio).
12/5/1918, Julius Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
19/3/1918, US Congress passed the Standard Time Act making
the 4 US time zones official.
9/1/1918, U.S troops engaged Yaqui Indian warriors in the
Battle of Bear Valley in Arizona, a minor skirmish and one of the last battles
of the American Indian Wars between the United States and American Indians.
7/12/1917. The USA declared
war on Austria.
4/8/1917. The US said
avoiding conscription could be punished with execution.
15/7/1917, US
Congress passed the Espionage Act. Section 1
introduced heavy penalties, of up to 20 years in prison, for anyone
causing insubordination or disloyalty in the armed forces, or obstructing
recruitment; 2,000 prosecutions were brought under this measure. The Act also
empowered the US Postmaster to exclude from the mail any material in violation
of Section 1.
27/6/1917. American troops arrived in France to fight with the Allies. The American expeditionary force was
commanded by General
John Pershing.
15/6/1917, The US passed the
Espionage Act, under which persons
could be fined or imprisoned for hindering the war effort; the Federal
Government took control of the US railways.
See France-Germany for
main events of World War One
18/5/1917. The US introduced
conscription under the Selective Service
Act. This required every male aged 21 to 31 to register for the draft on
6/6/1917. Local Boards would select half a million men for military service..
3/5/1917, US destroyers
arrived to join the British navy.
24/4/1917, In the US the
Liberty Loan Act authorised the issue of War Bonds.
20/4/1917. The US broke off
relations with Turkey.
6/4/1917. The USA declared war against Germany, with a
declaration signed by President Woodrow Wilson. This followed the
revealing by the British on 1/3/1917 of the Zimmerman Telegram, a missive from Germany to Mexico urging it to
declare war on the USA and recover its lost territories. The German Foreign
Minister, Arthur
Zimmerman, had sent a coded telegram to the German Ambassador in
Mexico offering an alliance against the US, in which Mexico would recover its
territories of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. British naval intelligence
intercepted and decoded the message and passed it to President Wilson. American
shipping bound for Britain had also been attacked by German submarines.
The Germans did not believe that
the US could raise and equip an effective army quickly enough to make a
difference in Europe, and that even if they did, it could not be transported
across a submarine-infested ocean. They seriously underestimated the
determination and resources of the US.
Meanwhile this day the King and
Queen of England attended a Thanksgiving service at St Pauls Cathedral for the
US’s entry into the ‘war for freedom’.
2/4/1917, US President Wilson asked the US
Congress to pass a resolution to declare war on Germany.
1/4/1917, Scott Joplin, American composer, died in
poverty in an asylum.
9/3/1917, Dante Fascell, American politician (U.S. House
of Representatives from Florida) was born in Bridgehampton, New York (d. 1998).
8/3/1917. US marines landed in Cuba to help the civil authorities.
7/3/1917. The Dixie Band One-Step was the world’s first jazz record to be
released. Ironically it was by the all-white
Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
2/3/1917. The US Congress passed the Jones Act, making Puerto Rico a US territory.
26/2/1917. News of the
sinking of the Cunard liner Laconia
by German U-boats reached capitol Hill just as Congress was debating measures
to protect US shipping from the growing menace of U boats in the Atrlantic.
Earlier in February 1917 a US ship, the Housatonic was sunk, making a total of
134 neutral ships destroyed by the Germans in the last 3 weeks. The US navy was
already mounting patrols to protect its ships in the Atlantic.
20/2/1917, The USA bought the Dutch West Indies.
7/2/1917. All US citizens in Germany were held as hostages.
5/2/1917, Immigrants to the US were now required to pass a
literacy test. This law, inspired by the Immigration
Restriction League founded in 1894, had been vetoed by US President Wilson, but was
passed by Congress anyway. Those fleeing religious persecution were exempted,
which allowed more Russian Jews to enter.
See
France-Germany for main events of World War One
3/2/1917. The USA broke off relations with Germany.
31/1/1917. Germany announced a policy of unrestricted naval
warfare. All ships, passenger or
cargo, found by Germans could now be sunk without warning. This was a
calculated risk by Germany because it
was bound to involve US shipping being sunk, and would therefore bring the USA
in against Germany. But Germany reckoned on the inevitability of the USA
entering the war against here soon anyway, and believed she could win the war
before this happened. The German Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Von
Holtzendorff, presented a memo to the Kaiser saying that if 600,000 tons of
Allied shipping could be sunk each month, within five months Britain would have
to surrender. In fact, in the worst month, April 1917, German U-boats sank
869,103 tons of shipping, 373 ships. The British adopted a convoy system,
despite fears that a convoy’s speed was limited to that of the slowest ship.
The Navy had feared it had too few destroyers for this job but then realised
that it had enough if only ocean-going ships, not cross-Channel traffic, was
guarded.
Meanwhile the British navy
deployed Q-ships, gunships disguised as merchant ships which lured U-boats to
the surface then opened their gun hatches at the last moment. The first trial
convoy ran from Gibraltar on 10/5/1917. The convoy system worked; of 26,604
vessels convoyed in 1917, only 147 were sunk. Meanwhile the Germans lost 65 of their
139 U-boats. Meanwhile Allied shipping blockaded German trade, creating
shortages of tea and coffee, but more seriously, fertiliser shortages too. In
the final German land offensive of 1918, advancing German troops discovered
their privations were not being endured by the enemy, and German morale fell.
29/1/1917. Congress passed the Immigration Act (or, Asiatic Barred Zone Act), requiring all
immigrants to know at least 30 words of English and banning all Asian migrants except Japanese. This followed on from
the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,
banning further immigration from China. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1917
for further details.
10/1/1917, William ‘Buffalo Bill’
Cody died, aged 71. He was a pony express rider before the Civil War, in which
he fought; after, he supplied meat to the workers of the Kansas Pacific
Railroad, hence his name. As chief of scouts for the US military he fought in
several battles against the Indians,
which made him famous.
1916, The US
introduced its first tax on inherited wealth, an ‘estate tax’.
14/12/1916, A referendum in Denmark agreed by
64.3% for to 35.7% against to agree to the sale of the Danish West Indies to
the US, for the sum of US$ 25 million. These islands became the US Virgin
Islands; they were of strategic importance to the US now that the Panama Canal
had opened. The islands were formally handed over on 1/4/1917, just before the
US declared war on Germany.
1/12/1916, The lights of the Statue of Liberty were turned on by President Wilson.
3/7/1916, Hetty Green, the wealthiest women in the USA
died aged 80, leaving a fortune of US$ 100 million.
15/6/1916, In the US, the Democratic Convention nominated President
Wilson as presidential candidate.
10/6/1916, In the US, the Republican Convention nominated Charles E
Hughes as presidential candidate.
15/3/1916. The US mounted a punitive raid into Mexico in
revenge for the raids of Pancho Villa into New Mexico on 9/3/1916.
28/9/1915. Ethel
Greenglass Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
7/5/1915. The Lusitania,
captained by William Thomas Turner, was torpedoed. 1,400 people drowned 8 miles off the Old Head of
Kinsale, near Cork. 128 Americans were among the 1,208 casualties, including
friends of President Woodrow Wilson and the millionaire yachtsman Alfred
Vanderbilt, as the ship made its way back to Liverpool on a voyage from New York.
America condemned the torpedoing of the ship by a German submarine as an act of
piracy and this brought the USA into the War.
The 30,000 tonne Lusitania
had sailed from New York on 1/5/1915. She carried 1,257 passengers, including
128 Americans; 702 crew; and an estimated 3 stowaways. Her cargo list, later a
source of controversy, included small arms cartridges, uncharged shrapnel
shells, cheese, furs, and, oddly, 205 barrels of oysters. The Germans later
claimed the ‘oysters’ were actually heavy munitions whose explosion had doomed
the ship. However there was no second explosion after the torpedo hit; there
were no heavy munitions and rifle rounds burned harmlessly, like firecrackers,
and did not explode.
Cunard had shut down the Lusitania’s fourth boiler
room to save on coal but even at the reduced maximum speed of 21 knots it was
reckoned she could outrun any German U-boat. Passengers ignored warnings
from the German Embassy published in the New York Press not to cross the
Atlantic under a belligerent flag, and the lifeboat drills on board were
palpably inadequate. The Lusitania had plenty of lifeboats but most were
unlaunchable because the ship listed heavily as water poured through lower deck
portholes, opened for air despite orders to close them. She sank within 18 minutes of being hit.
The
sinking of the Lusitania deepened American hostility towards Germany but
President Woodrow Wilson’s administration was split between the hawks and
doves, and it was another 2 years before America entered the war.
6/5/1915, Orson Wells, American actor and film director,
was born,
See
France-Germany for main events of World War One
20/4/1915. President Wilson declared the USA to be strictly neutral in the Great War.
2/1/1915, John Hope Franklin, US historian, was born.
15/3/1915, US soldiers under General Pershing entered Mexico
to hunt down the revolutionary Pancho Villa.
15/8/1914, The 40-mile long Panama Canal
opened; construction work had begun on 4/7/1914. The first ship to pass through
the canal, this day, was the SS Ancon.
31/7/1914. The New York stock exchange closed with the
outbreak of World War One.
8/5/1914, The US Congress officially recognised Mothers’ Day, setting it as the second
Sunday in May thereafter.
21/4/1914, US troops occupied the Mexican city of Vera Cruz
to prevent German weaponry reaching the Mexican military.
1913, The United States Department of Labor was created, to promote the
welfare of US workers.
1913, The Woolworth Building,
designed by Cass Gilbert, was completed. Until 1930 it was the highest
skyscraper in the city.
24/12/1913, The Italian
Hall Disaster. A stampede at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan killed 73
people (59 of them children) during a Christmas Eve celebration for over 400
striking miners and their families. An unknown person had yelled
"Fire!" (even though there wasn't one). Speculation included the
theory that an anti-union ally of mine management had yelled out the false
alarm in order to disrupt the party.
23/12/1913, The Federal
Reserve, the Central Banking system of the USA, was established.
17/11/1913. The steamship Louise
became the first ship
through the Panama Canal.
10/10/1913. The
Panama Canal was completed.
8/4/1913, The 17th
Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This provided for the
election of US Senators by direct popular vote, so ending the ‘millionaire’s
club’ that had dominated the US Senate.
31/3/1913, New York’s Ellis Island, where new migrants were
processed, received a record 6,745 admissions.
27/3/1913, The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously in
Futrell v. Oldham that Junius Futrell was the Governor of Arkansas,
after Futrell
and former President William Kavanaugh Oldham had both claimed the
office
25/2/1913. In the
USA, Federal income tax was introduced. By the 16th Amendment the US Government was
authorised to raise a tax of between 1% and 6% on incomes of more than US$
4,000 (US$ 3,000 for bachelors) without having to share this tax revenue
between the States of the Union according to their population.
3/2/1913. In the USA, the 16th
Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This authorised the imposition of income tax.
1912, US President Taft passed an Act
stipulating how the US flag should look (see 1818). It then had 48 stars.
2/11/1912, An explosion on the battleship USS Vermont near
Norfolk, Virginia killed 2 and injured 4.
14/10/1912. President Roosevelt was shot and seriously
wounded by a demented man in Milwaukee.
5/8/1912, In Chicago, the Progressive Party, nicknamed the "Bull Moose" Party to
rival the Republican elephant and Democrat donkey, called itself to order as
its founding convention opened at noon.
23/6/1912, A bridge over the Niagara Falls collapsed, killing
47.
27/5/1912, Sam Snead, US golfer, was born.
12/4/1912, Clara Barton (born 25/12/1812 near Oxford,
Massachusetts) died at Glen Echo, Maryland. She founded the American Red Cross
in 1881, having worked in Europe with the Red Cross there to alleviate the
suffering caused by the Franco-Prussian War.
14/2/1912. Arizona became the 48th State of the USA.
6/1/1912. New Mexico became the 47th State of the USA.
29/11/1911, The US journalist Joseph Pulitzer died.
3/11/1911, Death of Norman Jay Colman, the first US Secretary of Agriculture
(born 16/5/1827).
27/5/1911, Hubert Humphrey, US politician, was born (died
1978).
15/5/1911, After a long legal battle the US Supreme Court ordered that Standard Oil be broken up into 34
smaller companies, including Mobil Oil, Chevron and Exxon. Standard Oil had
become a huge monopoly through trust agreements signed by its leader John D
Rockerfeller in 1882, that gave it control over 75% of US refining
capacity, 90% of US pipelines, and 15% of creude oil products. Standard Oil
also had interests in gas, copper, iron, steel, shipping, banks, and railroad
companies. The State of Ohio challenged this monopoly in Court , and in 1890 US
Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act, giving the Federal US Government the power to regulate corporate
trusts that extended across State boundaries, In the 1904 Presidential Election
Theodore
Roosevelt began a trust-busting campaign, culminating in the 1911
Supreme Court decision against Standard Oil.
25/3/1911, Jack Ruby, American nightclub owner, and
killer of Lee
Harvey Oswald, was born as Jack Rubenstein in Chicago (died 1967).
23/2/1911, Quanah Parker, 65, Principal Chief of the Comanche Nation, died.
17/2/1911, The city of Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland,
was incorporated.
25/1/1911. US troops were sent to Rio Grande in the Mexican Civil
War.
1/10/1910, Bonnie Parker,
US outlaw of the Bonnie and Clyde duo, was born in Rowena, Texas.
30/9/1910, US
terrorist J.B. McNamara
planted a time bomb in a passage beneath the headquarters of the Los Angeles
Times newspaper, with 16 sticks of dynamite set to explode after working hours.
Two other bombs were placed outside the homes of the Times owner and the
secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. The bomb outside the
Times building detonated shortly after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, triggering an
explosion of natural gas lines and setting a fire that killed 20 newspaper
employees.
6/7/1910, The city of Redmond,
Oregon, was incorporated.
3/7/1910, Esau Jenkins,
African-American educator was born (died 1972).
19/6/1910. Fathers Day
was instituted in the USA.
18/6/1910, The city of Glendale, Arizona, was incorporated.
5/6/1910, Death of American short-story writer Henry O.
21/4/1910. Mark Twain, American author, died in Reading,
Connecticut, aged 74.
16/12/1909, US marines
forced the resignation of President Jose Zelaya
of Nicaragua.
22/8/1909, 5 US
workers died in steel industry riots.
24/3/1909, Clyde Barrow, one of the Bonnie and Clyde outlaws, was born in Toledo, Texas.
5/1/1909. The Colombian Government formally
recognised Panamanian independence.
14/11/1908, Joseph McCarthy, US politician and lawyer
noted for his purge against Communists,
was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin.
13/11/1908, C Vann Woodward, US historian, was born (died
1992).
14/10/1908, George Harold Brown, US engineer, was born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
12/8/1908, The Model T Ford
began rolling off the production line. Priced at US$ 825, the cost was kept low
by mass production using standardised parts. Instead of one man assembling an
entire car, each worker preformed just one task as the car moved along a
conveyor belt. By this production line method, the time to assemble a car was
cut from 14 hours to 2. To motivate his workforce, Henry Ford raised wages from US$ 2.34 for a 9 hour day to US$ 5 for an 8 hour day.
Productivity improvements meant Ford could reduce the car’s price to US$ 300.
Over 15 million Model Ts were built
and by the time production ceased in 1927 half
the cars in the US were Fords.
4/8/1908, William Boyd
Allison, US legislator, died in Dubuque, Iowa (born 2/3/1829 in
Perry, Ohio).
26/7/1908. The Federal Bureau
of Investigation, or FBI, was established in Washington DC. Before this date
the US Department of Justice often called on Secret Service ‘operatives’ to
help in its investigations. These operatives were well trained and dedicated
but expensive. They reported not to the Attorney General but to the chief of
the Secret Service.
Bonaparte
created a
special agents force, to report not to the chief of the Secret Service but to
the Chief Examiner, Stanley Finch, later head of the FBI. This force of 34
agents later became a permanent part of the Department of Justice.
2/7/1908, Thurgood Marshall, US lawyer, was born (died
1993)
10/5/1908. Mothers Day
was first celebrated in the USA.
21/3/1908, Abraham Maslow, US psychologist, was born
(died 1970).
US migration policy
24/2/1908. Japan
and the USA agreed to limit Japanese migration to the US. President
Roosevelt was concerned at working-class migration into the US
following an influx of Chinese coolies. Chinese migration began to fall from
its peak of 107,000 a year; Japanese migration only began more recently and in
1900 there were only 25,000 Japanese in the whole of the USA.
17/4/1907, A record
all time high of 11,747 immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, New York, this day.
14/3/1907, The US
President forbade Japanese labourers from entering the USA.
16/12/1907, The US sent a fleet of 16 battleships on a
round-the-world tour, to demonstrate the military might of the USA.
6/12/1907, The USA suffered its worst mine disaster. 361 died at Monongah, West Virginia.
16/11/1907. Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th State of the USA.
26/2/1907. President
Roosevelt put the US army in charge of building the Panama Canal.
24/1/1907, Alexander Russell Alger, US soldier and
politician (born 27/2/1836 in Lafayette, Ohio) died in Washington DC.
26/11/1906, US President Theodore Roosevelt returned to
the USA from Central America, becoming
the first American President to travel abroad whilst in office. On his
17-day trip aboard the US battleship Louisiana he visited Puerto Rico then went on to Panama to see how the construction of the Panama Canal
was progressing.
9/10/1906. Death of Joseph Glidden
in the USA; he invented barbed wire.
22/6/1906, US President Roosevelt sued John D Rockerfeller’s Standard Oil Company for operating a monopoly. See 15/5/1911.
18/4/1906. Major earthquake hit San
Francisco. Over
1,000 people were killed and large fires threatened upmarket homes on Nob Hill,
after the water mains were destroyed in the quake. Overall, 3,000 acres of the
city were devastated. The fire did more damage than the quake, it took 3 days
to bring the blaze under control and 490 blocks were destroyed.
24/12/1905, The US industrialist Howard
Hughes was born.
11/12/1905, Edward Atkinson, US economist, died in Boston
(born 10/2/1827 in Brookline, Massachusetts).
19/6/1905. The world’s
first all motion picture cinema opened in Pittsburgh. For 10 cents
admission there was a film, Poor But
Honest, followed by The Baffled
Burglar, accompanied by a melody on the
harp by Madame Durocher.
17/3/1905, Joseph Hawley, US politician, died (born
31/10/1826).
28/2/1905, George Boutwell, US statesman, died in Groton,
Massachusetts (born in Brookline, Massachusetts 28/1/1818).
23/2/1905, The Rotary
Club was founded by Paul Harris and others, in offices in Dearborn,
Chicago.
18/2/1905, Jay Cooke, US financier, died (born
10/8/1821).
10/2/1905. The state of Wisconsin passed a tax on bachelors aged over 30.
1904, The US
Forestry Service was created, out of the Department of Agriculture, by
President Roosevelt.
1/12/1904, The Great
World Fair, at St Louis, USA, closed, having had millions of visitors from
all over the world.
4/10/1904, Death of French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi,
designer of the Statue of Liberty.
30/9/1904, George Hoar, US politician, died (born
29/8/1836).
1/8/1904. Birth of American jazzman Count Basie.
4/7/1904. Work
began on the 40 mile-long Panama Canal.
It opened on 15/8/1914.
2/5/1904. Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington, as
Harry Lillis Crosby.
30/4/1904, The St Louis Exhibition opened.
22/4/1904. Robert Oppenheimer, American scientist who developed
the US atomic bomb at Los Alamos, was born in New York City.
22/3/1904. In the USA, the Daily
Illustrated Mirror carried the world’s first colour picture in a newspaper.
1/3/1904, Glenn Miller, American trombonist, was born in
Clarinda, Indiana.
15/2/1904, Marcus Hanna, US politician, died (born
24/9/1837).
7/2/1904. A major fire destroyed much of the centre of
Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
30/12/1903, Major fire at a Chicago theatre, 602 killed in a
panic stampede for the exit.
18/11/1903, Panama granted the canal strip to
US, by treaty ratified on 26/2/1904.
3/11/1903. Panama
revolted and declared itself independent from Colombia. On 6/11/1903 the US recognised Panamanian independence. On 12/8/1903
the Colombian Senate had rejected US plans for a canal at Panama. On 18/11/1903 the US and Panama signed a
treaty to build the Canal. See 22/1/1903. On 2/11/1903 the US sent three warships to
Panama.
21/9/1903. The first Wild West movie, Kit Carson, opened in the USA. It was 21 minutes long.
12/8/1903, The Colombian Senate rejected US
plans for a Canal at Panama, see 3/11/1903.
22/7/1903, Cassius Clay, US politician, died (born
19/10/1818).
4/7/1903, President Roosevelt of the USA inaugurated the
Pacific Communications Cable with a global message.
22/4/1903, The new New York Stock Exchange opened at 18 Broad
Street.
21/3/1903, In the US, the grievances that caused the 1902
miners’ strike were resolved with a 10% pay rise and shorter working day, The
mine owners, however, refused to recognise the United Mine Workers Union.
14/3/1903. The US Senate ratified construction
of the Panama Canal.
3/3/1903. The USA passed a bill to limit immigration and ban
‘undesirables’.
15/2/1903, The first teddy bear was sold from Michtom’s candy
store, New York. The origin of teddy bears was that in 1902 on a hunting trip
by President Theodore Roosevelt, his assistants tied a bear to a tree so he
could shoot it; Roosevelt refused such unsporting conduct and set the bear free
instead.
5/2/1903, Henry Dawes, US lawyer, died (born
30/10/1816).
22/1/1903. The USA and Colombia signed a treaty
to allow construction of the Panama Canal. See 3/11/1903.
1902, (see also Prisons) Death of John Peter
Atgeld (born 1847), who was a prison reformer ahead of his time. A
German-born lawyer in Chicago, he was concerned about how the poor found it
difficult to access justice. He was elected Governor of Illinois in 1892 and
succeeded in passing laws regulating child labour and loosening the monopolies
enjoyed by railways and tramways companies. He pardoned three anarchists
imprisoned since 1886, and condemned President Cleveland for sending in troops to
disrupt a railway strike. However he was then vilified by the press as a
‘Illinois Jacobin’ and was defeated when seeking re-election in 1896.
31/12/1902, In a test
of the Monroe doctrine, British
and German
naval ships seized the Venezuelan navy and shelled a fort in Caracas,
to enforce payment for property seized without compensation during the 1899
revolution. The US pressurised the two countries to end the blockade and refer
the matter to the international court in The Hague.
15/10/1902, US President Roosevelt threatened to send in
troops to end a miner’s strike.
15/9/1902, Horace Gray, US jurist, died (born 24/3/1828).
26/7/1902, Charles Adams, US historian (born 24/1/1835)
died.
28/6/1902, The USA authorised the construction
of the Panama Canal.
20/5/1902, Cuba gained dependence, from US military rule, see
1/1/1899.
11/5/1902, Charles Collis, US soldier, died aged 64.
7/5/1902, The U.S. House of Representatives began
consideration of statehood for the U.S. territories of Oklahoma, Arizona and
New Mexico.
16/2/1902, George Carter Needham, US evangelist, died
aged 56.
18/1/1902. A US
Commission chose Panama as the site for a new canal.
18/11/1901. US journalist and statistician George Gallup was born in Jefferson, Iowa.
29/10/1901, Anarchist
Leon
Czolgosz was executed by electrocution for assassinating US President McKinley
26/10/1901, William Holland, US abolitionist, died aged
87.
25/10/1901, A serious fire killed 19 people and left another
12 badly injured in Philadelphia, USA. The fire began in the 8-floor Hu8nt
& Wilkinson furniture company and spread to three other buildings. The
conflagration began in the basement and spread up the lift shaft.
24/10/1901, Ann Edson Taylor rode over the Niagara Falls
in a padded barrel, and lived to tell the tale.
12/10/1901, President Theodore Roosevelt renamed the Executive Mansion
as The White House.
6/8/1901, The town of Lawton, Oklahoma, came into being as
the United States Land Office began auctioning lots divided from a 320-acre
townsite located near the U.S. Army's Fort Sill.
17/7/1901, Daniel Butterfield, US soldier, died (born
1831).
4/7/1901, US Republican,
Taft,
was appointed Governor of the Philippines. replacing a former military government with civilian
rule. He announced an amnesty for all former rebels who took an oath of
allegiance to the USA.
21/5/1901, Fitz-John Porter, US soldier (born 31/8/1822)
died.
25/2/1901, ‘Zeppo’ Marx, the youngest of the Marx Brothers,
who became their agent, was born in New York City as Herbert.
24/2/1901, After 53 ballots without any single candidate
attaining a majority, the legislature of Oregon elected former Senator John H.
Mitchell to be one of its two United States Senators.
8/2/1901, Benjamin Prentiss, US Major General who had
distinguished himself at the Battle of Shiloh, died aged 81.
10/1/1901, Major oil discovery in Texas, USA. The salt dome
of Spindletop had been suspected of containing oil since 1865; this day oil was
struck; a gush of oil 6 inches wide rose over 200 feet, and was visible for
over 10 miles. The population of nearby Beaumont rapidly rose from 10,000 to over
50,000, as oil production at Spindletop reached 100,000 barrels per day. Oil
production in the area lasted until 1950.
2/12/1900, The US
Supreme Court declared that Puerto
Ricans did not qualify for US citizenship.
27/11/1900, Cushman Davis,
US politician, died (born 16/6/1838).
8/9/1900, Over 5,000 were killed
when a hurricane hit Galveston, Texas.
5/7/1900, Henry Barnard,
US educationalist, died in Hartford, Connecticut born in Hartford, Connecticut
24/1/1811).
21/6/1900, In the
US, the Republican Party Convention renominated McKinley for Presidency and Theodore Roosevelt
for vice-Presidency.
16/4/1900. The world’s first
book of stamps was issued, in the USA.
8/4/1900, In the first major event associated with the
introduction of Buddhism to the United States, Buddha's birthday was celebrated
in an elaborate ceremony in San Francisco. The Buddhist mission had begun its
outreach to European-Americans in weekly lectures beginning on January 4.
27/1/1900, Hyman Rickover, US Admiral was born in Maków
Mazowiecki, Poland (died 1986)
4/1/1900, Jacob Cox, US General, died (born 27/10/1828).
2/1/1900. New York’s first
electric omnibus began operating.
23/12/1899, Dorman Eaton, US lawyer, died (born
27/6/1823).
2/12/1899. In Washington, the USA, Britain, and Germany signed
a treaty dividing the Samoan Islands
between the USA and Germany.
21/11/1899, Garrett Hobart, US Vice-President, died (born
3/6/1844).
5/10/1899, James Harlan, US politician, died (born
26/8/1820).
9/4/1899, Stephen Field, US jurist, died (born 4/11/1816).
6/9/1899. The US
Secretary of State, John Hay, embarked
on an ‘open door’ policy towards China. He also urged the European powers,
and Japan, to respect China’s territorial integrity and pursue a policy of free trade with China.
31/7/1899, Daniel Brinton, US archaeologist, died (born
30/5/1837).
1/7/1899, The first
juvenile court sat, at Cork County Court, Chicago.
26/6/1889, Simon Cameron, US politician, died (born
8/3/1799).
24/5/1889, Laura Bridgman, US blind deaf mute, died (born
21/12/1829).
18/3/1899, Othniel Charles Marsh, US palaeontologist,
died in new Haven, Connecticut.
17/1/1899, Al Capone, American gangster who operated in
Chicago, was born in Naples, Italy.
19/11/1898, Don Carlos Buell, US soldier, died (born
23/3/1818).
28/9/1898, Thomas Bayard, US statesman, died in Dedham,
Massachusett (born in Wilmington, Delaware, 29/10/1828).
US battle for the Philippines, 1898-1899
24/11/1899. US
forces finally captured Luzon in the Philippines after nine months of jungle
warfare. The US was awarded the Philippines in 1898 but found it hard to
subdue the territory. Insurrectionist leader Emilio Aguinaldo wanted
independence and declared the Malolos Republic in 1898. Aguinaldo continued a
guerrilla war from the mountains.
4/2/1899, A
rebellion against US rule broke out on the Philippines. The US had backed
General Emilio Aguinaldo against Spanish colonial rule (see 10/12/1898), but
instead of independence the Philippines came under US rule.
1/1/1899, The official date on which US military rule
succeeded Spanish rule of Cuba.
12/12/1898, The Treaty of
Paris ended the US-Spanish war.
10/12/1898, The war between Spain
and the USA ended. The USA acquired Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and. for a US$20 million
indemnity, the Philippines. See 4/2/1899.
18/10/1898, The USA took formal possession
of Puerto Rico from Spain.
13/8/1898,
US forces captured Manila, capital of the Philippines.
28/7/1898,
Puerto Rico surrendered to US forces.
3/7/1898,
The US navy destroyed a Spanish fleet attempting to
escape the US blockade on the port of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. On 5/7/1898 US forces captured Santiago
itself.
20/6/1898,
The US navy seized the island of Guam.
1/5/1898, US forces under George Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet
in Manila Bay, Philippines.
24/4/1898, The United States
declared war on Spain as a result of the
sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbour on 15 February 1898.
Fighting began in the Philippine Islands at the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May
1898, where Commodore
George Dewey destroyed a Spanish fleet. The war ended when the USA
and Spain signed a peace treaty in Paris on 10 December 1898. As a result Spain
lost control over the remains of its empire, including Cuba.
20/4/1898, The US demanded the withdrawal of Spanish troops from
Cuba.
15/2/1898, The US warship Maine blew up in Havana harbour,
Cuba. Spanish sabotage was
suspected. The USA declared war on Spain
on 24/4/1898.
27/3/1898, Gloria Swanson, American silent-film star, was
born.
1/1/1898. The boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond,
Manhattan, and The Bronx united to form
Greater New York.
22/2/1897, Darius Couch, US soldier, died (born
23/7/1822).
19/2/1897. The Women’s Institute organisation was
founded at Stoney Creek in Ontario by Mrs Hoodless. The first W I meeting was
on 25/9/1897. The W I idea was brought to England by a Mrs Watt during World
War One.
13/1/1897, Mr
and Mrs Bradley Martin, members of
New York’s ‘top 400’, threw an extremely extravagant party in which the
ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria was made into a replica of Versailles. This
event, in the face of an economic recession, attracted much criticism in the
popular press, and the Martins fled to England.
26/6/1896. The world’s first permanent cinema opened
in New Orleans; admission was 10 cents. Britain’s first cinema opened in
Islington on 5/8/1901, and charged between 6d and 3s for entry. However by
World War One most cinemas were only charging 3d or 6d. The first drive in cinema opened on
6/6/1933 in Camden, New Jersey, and could hold 400 cars.
22/6/1896, Benjamin Bristol, US politician, died (born
20/6/1832).
5/5/1896, Silas Adams, US politician died (born 1839)
4/1/1896. Utah became the 45th State of the USA.
17/12/1895. Relations
between the US and Britain were under severe strain because of a border dispute
between Guiana and Venezuela.
26/8/1895. A hydroelectric
plant designed by Nikola Tesla and built by Westinghouse opened
at Niagara Falls.
28/5/1895, Walter Gresham, US statesman, died (born
28/5/1895).
31/1/1895, Ebenezer Hoar, US politician, died (born
21/2/1816).
1/1/1895, J Edgar Hoover, American criminologist and
founder of the FBI, was born in Washington DC.
14/12/1894. Eugene Debs, President of the American Railway
Union, was jailed for 6 months for ignoring an injunction to end the Pullman
strike. The strike began on 11/5/1894 when the Pullman Company reduced wages
but did not cut rents for workers living in company housing. The strike turned violent with riots and
burning or railroad cars. Attorney-General Richard Olney obtained an injunction
to end the strike on the grounds it was obstructing the mail, and when this was
ignored federal troops arrived in Chicago to enforce the court order. By
10/7/1894 the strike was broken.
22/11/1894. The USA and Japan signed a commercial treaty.
7/10/1894. Andrew Curtin, US politician, died (born
22/4/1817).
1/5/1894. David Coxey, who led a march of 100,000
unemployed to the capital, Washington, to demand economic reform, was arrested.
13/4/1894, David Field, US lawyer, died (born 13/2/1805).
28/3/1894, George Curtis, US lawyer, died (born
28/11/1812).
2/3/1894, Jubal Anderson Early, US Confederate General
(born 3/11/1816 in Franklin County, Virginia) died in Lynchburg, Virginia.
3/1/1894, Elizabeth Peabody, American educator
and founder in 1960 of the first kindergarten in the US, died aged 89.
26/1/1893, Abner Doubleday, US soldier, died (born
26/6/1819).
11/1/1893, Benjamin Butler, US politician, died (born
5/11/1818).
11/5/1893, Samuel Armstrong, US soldier and
philanthropist, died in Hampton, Virginia (born 30/1/1839 in Maui, Hawaii).
20/2/1893, Pierre Beauregard, American Confederate General, died.
27/1/1893, James Blaine, US statesman, died in Washington
DC (born in Pennsylvania 31/1/1830).
15/12/1892, Paul Getty, US oil tycoon, was born in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
2/12/1892, Jay Gould, US financier, died (born
27/5/1836).
17/8/1892, Mae West, US film actress, was born in Brooklyn,
New York. She was the daughter of a
boxer.
US restricts immigration, especially from China
1902.The Chinese Exclusion Act
was extended to include those of Oriental origin from Hawaii and the
Philippines, and such exclusion was made permanent.
17/3/1894, The USA and China signed a Chinese Exclusion
Treaty, whereby China consented to the exclusion of Chinese labourers from
migration to the USA. This year the US established an Immigration Bureau, and a
group of Boston citizens formed an Immigration Restriction League, which
campaigned for literacy tests for immigrants to the US. This was aimed against
Chinese, Slavs and Latin-Americans.
5/5/1892, US Congress passed the Geary Chinese Exclusion
Act, extending all restrictions on Chinese immigration to the USA for another
10 years, and requiring all existing Chinese immigrants to register or face
deportation.
1/1/1892, New York opened an immigration office on Ellis Island to cope with the flood of
immigrants to the USA.
Many were fleeing political and religious
persecution in Russia and Central Europe. Named after Samuel Ellis, who owned
the island in the 1770s, the new facility replaced older cramped facilities at
The Battery on Manhattan Island.
3/3/1891, US Congress voted to establish a US Office of
Superintendent of Immigration.
1/10/1888, In an attempt to curb
Chinese immigration, US Congress ruled that any Chinese
worker who had left the USA could not return again.
4/7/1891, Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President of the USA,
died (born 27/8/1809).
7/4/1891, Phineas T Barnum, American circus showman,
died aged 80.
4/3/1891, US Congress passed the Copyright Act, to protect authors, composers and artists.
14/2/1891, William Sherman, Union Army commander in the
American Civil War, died in New York City.
17/1/1891, George Bancroft, US politician, died in
Washington (born in Worcester, Massachusetts 3/10/1800).
7/1/1891, Charles Devens, US lawyer, died (born
4/4/1820).
24/11/1890, August Belmont, US financier, died in New York
(born in Prussia 8/12/1816).
6/8/1890, In New York’s Auburn prison, the electric chair was used for the first time on the
murderer William
Kemmler. This method of execution was attacked as constituting
‘cruel and unusual punishment’ but was upheld in the US State and Federal
Courts. By 1906 115 murderers had been executed by ‘electrothanasia’, and the
method was had also adopted by the US States of Ohio (1896), Massachusetts
(1898), New Jersey (1906), Virginia (1908) and North Carolina (1910).
13/7/1890, John Fremont, explorer of the US Midwest, died
(21/1/1813).
10/7/1890, Wyoming was
admitted as the 44th State
of the USA.
3/7/1890, Idaho became the
43rd State of the Union.
2/7/1890, The US government passed
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, banning trade monopolies. With more than 90%
of the US oil trade in the hands of the Rockerfeller family, and sugar, wheat,
and alcohol prices also governed by mysterious ‘trusts’, the US government felt
that these trusts threatened the economic structure of the USA. A judge, Mr
Justice Harlan, said that these trusts were another form of slavery, as capital
became concentrated in the hands of a few.
1/6/1890, The US Census Bureau began using Herman
Hollerith’s tabulating machine to count census returns. Hollerith’s company eventually became IBM.
14/4/1890, The
Pan-American Union was established at the first International Congress of
American States.
28/3/1890, Washington
State University was established in
Pullman, Washington.
8/3/1890, North
Dakota State University was founded in Fargo, North Dakota.
11/11/1889. Washington became the 42nd State of the Union.
8/11/1889, Montana became the 41st State of the Union.
2/11/1889, North and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th States of the Union.
24/9/1889, Daniel Hill, US Confederate soldier, died
(born 11/7/1821).
3/6/1889, The first
‘long-distance’ electric power transmission
line in the US was completed. It ran
14 miles from a generator at Williamette Falls to downtown Portland, Oregon.
22/4/1889, The great
land rush in the US, see 2/5/1890.
8/3/1889, John Ericsson, Swedish-US inventor and
engineer, died in New York City (born in Langbanshyttan, Sweden, 31/7/1803).
22/2/1889, US President Grover Cleveland signed a Bill admitting North and South
Dakota, Montana, and Washington, as US States.
25/10/1888,
Richard Byrd,
US naval officer and polar explorer, was born in Winchester, Virginia.
9/10/1888,
The 555-foot high white marble Washington
Monument was opened. It was designed
by Robert Mills.
18/4/1888,
Roscoe
Conkling, US lawyer and politician, died in New York City
(born 30/10/1829 in Albany, New York).
4/3/1888,
Amos Alcott, US educationalist, born 29/11/1799, died.
25/12/1887, Conrad Hilton, American hotelier, was born in
San Antonio, New Mexico.
23/11/1887, Violence erupted in a sugar cane workers strike in
Louisiana, and at least 20 Black people were killed.
8/3/1887, Henry Beecher, US preacher, died in Brooklyn
(born in Litchfield, Connecticut 24/6/1813).
21/2/1887, James Geddes, US soldier, died (born
19/3/1827).
21/11/1886, Charles Adams, US diplomat (born 18/8/1807 in
Boston) died in Boston.
28/10/1886, The Statue of Liberty in New York was
unveiled by President
Grover Cleveland.
It was presented by France to mark the 100th
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and designed by the French
sculptor Auguste Bartholdi; it took more than nine years to complete.
31/8/1886, Earthquake
hit Charleston, USA. .27 were killed and 90% of the city’s buildings were
damaged, with US$5 million incurred. However the city soon recovered.
28/5/1886, John Bartlett,
US historian, died in Providence (born in Providence, Rhode Island 23/10/1805).
20/5/1885, Frederick Frelinghuysen, US
statesman, died (born 4/8/1817).
4/5/1886, The
Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago. A bomb exploded at a trades union rally,
killing 7 policemen and injuring 70 other people. Four people were executed by
the State of Illinois, and the incident greatly eroded public support for the
trades union movement.
1/5/1886, Over 100,00 workers across the USA went on strike for an 8 hour day. A
bomb thrown by Anarchists in Chicago on 4/5/1886 killed 7 police and strikers
and injured 60 more. The perpetrator was never found but a judge ruled that
seven who had incited the event were as guilty and sentenced them to death. One
committed suicide, four were executed, and two had their sentences commuted.
9/2/1886, Winfield Hancock, US General, died (born
14/2/1824).
14/11/1885, Horace Chaflin, US merchant, died (born
18/12/1811).
10/9/1885, The town of Stafford, Kansas, was officially
incorporated as such. The boundaries of Stafford County were fixed by the US
legislature in 1868, and was named in honour of Lewis Stafford, a Civil War
soldier who was killed ion the Battle of Young’s Point. For several years the
county had no permanent settlers, but was inhabited by buffalo hunters,
cowboys, and surveyors. The first permanent inhabitants arrived in May 1874.
Early industries included the gathering of buffalo hides and bones left by
earlier settlers; buffalo bones fetched US$3-US$9 a ton. Many of the first
houses were made of earth, or sod, hence the first town here was called
‘Sod-Town’, renamed Stafford in 1885.
23/7/1885, Ulysses Grant, American commander of the Union
Army, Republican politician and 18th President from 1869 to 1877,
died of cancer in Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, New York State.
19/6/1885. The Statue
of Liberty arrived in New York from France. The statue was dedicated to the
US-France friendship on 28/10/1886 by President Cleveland. The Statue was 300
foot high, of a woman holding a tablet with the date 4 July 1776 on it. The 225
ton structure made of hand-hammered copper sheet on a steel frame was assembled
in France then dismantled and shipped to the USA.
24/2/1885, Chester Nimitz, American admiral and commander
in the Pacific during World War II, was born in Fredericksburg, Texas.
13/1/1885, Schuyler Colfax, US politician, died (born
23/3/1823).
4/7/1884, The Statue of Liberty was formally presented to US
Minister Morton by Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps.
16/6/1884, The first
purpose-built roller coaster, the Switchback railway, opened at Coney Island,
New York.
21/5/1884, The Statue
of Liberty was completed. Work on it was begun in 1874 by Auguste
Bartholdi, in Paris.
21/3/1884, Ezra Abbot, US scholar of the Bible, died in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
27/12/1883, Andrew Humphreys, US soldier, died (born
2/11/1810).
23/10/1883, The Metropolitan Opera House in New York opened.
4/7/1883, The Statue of Liberty was presented to the USA by
France.
4/4/1883, Death of Peter Cooper, US
inventor and steam locomotive designer (born 12/2/1791).
16/1/1883, The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in the USA instituted a more
meritocratic system of recruitment to the Civil Service, replacing the former
‘spoils’ system.
1882, The US
passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, to halt Chinese immigration into the
USA. See 29/1/1917.
26/10/1881, The gunfight
at the OK Corral, Arizona, took place between Doc Holliday and Wyatt,
Virgil
and Morgan
Earp
and the Clantons
and McLaurys.
13/9/1881, Ambrose
Burnside, US soldier, died (born 23/5/1824).
3/8/1881, William George Fargo,
co-founder of the Wells Fargo Express
in 1852, died aged 65.
4/7/1881, The outlaw William H Bonney,
or Billy the Kid, born 23/11/1859, was shot dead in New Mexico by lawman Pat
Garrett. He reputedly killed his first man before he was a teenager.
31/12/1880, George Marshal, US general and politician who
originated the Marshal Plan for the
post World War Two reconstruction of Europe, was born in Uniontown,
Pennsylvania.
27/11/1880, George Crittenden, US soldier, died (born
20/3/1812).
1/6/1880, The first public telephone call box was
installed, in New Haven, Connecticut.
8/3/1880. President Hayes of America declared that the
USA will have jurisdiction over any canal built across Panama.
26/1/1880, Douglas MacArthur, American military commander
in the south-west Pacific in World War Two, was born near Little Rock,
Arkansas.
8/11/1879, Margaret Eaton, acquaintance of US President
Jackson, died (born 1796).
1/11/1879, Zachariah Chandler, US politician, died (born
10/12/1813)
13/10/1879, Henry Carey, US economist, died (born
15/12/1793).
30/8/1879, John Hood, US soldier, died (born 1831)
26/6/1879, Henry Richard Anderson, US soldier, died in
Beaufort, South Carolina (born 7/10/1821 in South Carolina).
21/4/1879, John Dix, US politician, died (born
24/7/1798).
9/3/1879, Elihu Burritt, US philanthropist, died (born
8/12/1810)
2/1/1879, Caleb Cushing, US statesman, died at
Newburyport, |Massachusetts.
10/12/1878, Henry Wells, partner of William Fargo, died.
4/10/1878, The first Chinese Embassy in the USA opened, in Washington
DC.
12/6/1878, Benjamin Bonneville, US military engineer and
explorer, died in Foret Smith, Arkansas. An extinct glacial lake which once
covered NW Utah is named in his honour.
28/1/1878, America’s first commercial telephone switchboard
exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut.
29/10/1877, Nathan Forrest, US Confederate General, died
(born 13/7/1821).
27/9/1876, Braxton Bragg, US soldier, died in Galveston,
Texas (born in North Carolina 22/3/1817).
2/8/1876, Death of Wild Bill Hickok, Marshall of Kansas City, who
gunned down many outlaws; he was shot in the back this day.
1/8/1876, Colorado became the 38th State of the USA.
9/1/1876, Samuel Howe, US philanthropist, died (born
10/11/1801).
2/10/1875, San Francisco’s Palace Hotel opened.
10/6/1875, Duff Green, US politician, died (born
15/8/1791).
17/5/1875, The Kentucky Derby horse race, USA, was first run.
17/12/1874, William Cushing, US naval officer, died (born
4/11/1842).
9/12/1874, Ezra Cornell, US industrialist who founded Cornell University
in Ithaca, died.
7/12/1874, Race riots in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 75 Black
people were killed.
17/9/1874, The White League rioted against the Black
Government in New Orleans,USA.
15/9/1874, Benjamin Curtis, US jurist, died (born
4/11/1809).
23/12/1873, Sarah Grimke, US social reformer, died (born
6/11/1792).
19/11/1873, John Hale, US politician, died (born
31/3/1806).
7/5/1873, Salmon Chase, US jurist, died (born
13/1/1808).
6/5/1873, John Brodhead, US historical scholar, died
(born 2/1/1814).
4/3/1873, The New York
Daily Graphic became the world’s first illustrated daily newspaper.
5/12/1872, The Marie Celeste was spotted
drifting, crewless, in the Atlantic near The Azores, and was boarded by the
crew of the Dei Gratia. The 206 ton Marie Celeste had left New
York on 7/11/1872, captained by Benjamin Briggs, with his wife, daughter and
eight crew on its way to Genoa, with a cargo of 1,700 barrels of alcohol, which
was found intact. The lifeboat was missing but the captain’s table was set for
a meal that was never eaten.
9/11/1872, A great
fire broke out in the commercial district of Boston, USA, on
the Saturday night. It burned until Sunday 10th, and destroyed 767
buildings filled with merchandise. 14 lives and an estimated US$75million of
goods were lost. Very little residential property was lost and the commercial
district was soon rebuilt with better buildings and straighter roads.
7/11/1872, The 282 ton brigantine Marie Celeste set
sail from New York on her ill-fated journey.
25/9/1872, Peter Cartwright, US Methodist preacher, died
(born 1/9/1785).
9/4/1872, Erastus Corning, US politician and
industrialist, died (born 14/12/1994).
25/1/1872, Richard Ewell, US soldier, died (born
2/2/1817).
6/1/1872, James Fisk, US financier, was shot and killed
(born 1/4/1834).
26/10/1871, Thomas Ewing, US politician, died (born
28/12/1789).
17/10/1871, Death of Sylvester Mowry (born 17/1/1833). He was a
miner and land speculator who promoted the establishment of the Arizona
Territory.
11/10/1871, The Great
Fire of Chicago ended.
8/10/1871, The Great
Fire of Chicago started, killing 300 people. 90,000 were made homeless and
US$ 200 million damage was done. The
fire ended on 11/10/1871; it was supposedly started in Mrs O’Leary’s barn in De
Koven Street, by a cow upsetting a lantern. Four square miles of the city were
destroyed, as a long spell of dry weather had made buildings tinder-dry.
11/7/1871, In New York City the ferryboat SS Westfield
exploded, killing 104 people. Her boiler was severely corroded, but safety
standards remained lax.
20/4/1871, In the
US, the Klu Klux Klan Act outlawed
paramilitary organisations such as the Klu
Klux Klan.
24/12/1870, Albert Barnes,
US theologian, died in Philadelphia (born in Rome, New York State, 1/12/1798).
12/10/1870, Robert E Lee, US Confederate General during the Civil War, died in Lexington,
Virginia.
17/8/1870, Mount Rainier, Washington, was first successfully
climbed.
14/7/1870, David Farragut, US naval hero of the Civil War, died in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire.
12/7/1870, John Dahlgreen, US Admiral, died.
22/6/1870, The US Department of Justice was established.
23/2/1870, Anson Burlingame, US statesman, died (born
14/11/1820).
9/2/1870, The United States weather service was published.
3/2/1870, In the
US, the Fifteenth
Amendment gave every US citizen, regardless of race, the right to
vote.
10/9/1869, John Bell,
US politician, died (born near Nashville, Tennessee 15/2/1797).
6/9/1869, William
Fessenden, US politician, died (born 16/10/1806).
13/7/1869,
Anti-Chinese-labourer riots in San Francisco.
10/5/1869, The first railroad
across the USA from east to west, 1,776 miles long, was completed after three years work at a
ceremony west of Ogden, in Utah. The Union Pacific Line finally met with the
Central Pacific Line. Both companies raced to lay as much track as possible as
they converged, spurred on by government payments of US$16,000 per mile, more
for mountainous areas. A golden spike was driven in at Promontory Point, Utah,
where the railways met. Travel time between New York and San Francisco was slashed from 3
months to 8 days.
8/4/1869, Harvey Cushing, US surgeon, was born.
7/11/1868, Royal Samuel Copeland, US politician, was born
in Michigan.
3/11/1868, Ulysses S Grant, ultimate commander of the
Union armies in the Civil War, was elected President of the USA.
9/10/1868, Howell Cobb, US politician, died (born
7/9/1815).
24/8/1868, George J Adler, US lexicographer (born 1821) died.
28/7/1868, The USA and China signed the Burlingame Treaty at
Washington DC, defining mutual rights of migration between the two countries.
25/7/1868, President Johnson signed an Act creating the territory of Wyoming.
9/7/1868, The US
passed the Fourteenth Amendment, during the period of
‘reconstruction’ following the conclusion of the Civil War. It guaranteed
equality before the law for Blacks and Whites alike, specifically including
ex-slaves here, and prohibited any State from ‘abridging their privileges’
or denying them ‘equal protection of the
laws’. However, due to the fact that corporations are also ‘persons’ before the
law, the 14th
Amendment began to be used for purposes it was not intended for. The 14th Amendment was used
to shield companies from government regulation, and even, before the 1950s, to
justify racial discrimination because it contained the words ‘separate but
equal’. Later, in the 1980s, it was still being used to block so-called
‘positive discrimination’ in favour of racial minorities.
23/5/1868, Kit Carson,
US soldier and fur trapper who did much to open up the West to White settlers,
died (born 24/12/1809).
25/2/1868, Andrew Johnson, 17th US President 1865-69, was impeached.
30/10/1867, John Albion Andrew, US politician, died in Boston
(born 31/5/1818 in Windham, Maine).
28/8/1867, The Midway Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were
claimed for the US by Captain Reynolds.
29/7/1867, Charles Anthon, US classicist, died in New
York (born 19/11/1797 in New York City).
1/5/1867. The Confederate
leader Jefferson
Davies walked out of a Virginia courtroom, free after 2 years in prison. But he still faced treason charges,
as well as involvement in the assassination of President Lincoln.
1/3/1867, Nebraska became the 37th State of the Union.
4/3/1866, Alexander Campbell, US religious leader, died
(born 12/9/1788).
12/2/1866. Invoking the Monroe
Doctrine, the USA called for the withdrawal
of French troops from Mexico.
Maximilian,
having failed to secure recognition of his regime from the US, now sought help
from Napoleon
III and the Pope, but his cause was hopeless.
25/12/1865, The Union
stockyards at Chicago opened, on 345 acres of reclaimed swampland SW of the
city. The shutdown of the Mississippi River as a trade route due to the US
Civil War meant that Chicago replaced Cincinnati, Louisville and St Louis as
the nation’s meat packing centre, along with the railways now serving Chicago.
The new stockyards could hold 10,000 cattle and 100,000 hogs.
24/12/1865, The Klu
Klux Klan was founded in the US by six men in Pulaski, Tennessee.
18/12/1865. Slavery was
officially abolished in the USA with the ratification of the 13th
Amendment, signed on 1/2/1865. See 16/6/1858. The slave trade to the United States had been prohibited in 1807 but
slavery continued in the southern States as the cotton trade grew. The
publication of Harriet
Beecher’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 convinced many of the
evils of slavery but Northerners were still reluctant to back a full
abolitionist policy. But they did not wish to see slavery spread from the South
either and this led to the American Civil War
of 1861-65 after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Slaves were freed
in areas joining the Northern side and in all areas after the 13th
Amendment was passed.
8/7/1865. Four of the conspirators involved in the murder of President
Lincoln (see 15/4/1865) were hanged. Another three were sentenced to
life imprisonment.
26/5/1865. The Confederate Army under General Kirby
Smith surrendered in Texas, fully ending the American Civil War.
10/5/1865. Jefferson Davies, Confederate
President of the USA, was taken prisoner by Union forces in the American Civil War.
27/4/1865, In the
US, the paddle steamer Sultana
exploded on the Mississippi River, killing 1,600 people on board.
26/4/1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President
Abraham Lincoln, died of a bullet wound incurred whilst resisting
arrest in a burning barn on a farm near Bowling Green, Virginia.
9/4/1865. The American
Civil War ended when General Robert E Lee surrendered
his Confederate army to General Ulysses S
Grant at the Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The 27,000-strong Confederate army was effectively
beaten but was seeking to gain access to
a railway which could have taken them south to join with General Johnson’s
forces in North Carolina. But Union forces blocked this move. The
Confederate soldiers were allowed to keep their horses and small arms, on
condition that they did not take up arms against the North again. This
surrender effectively ended a conflict
that had set brother against brother, and taken over half a million lives.
6/4/1865, The Battle of Sailor's Creek was fought near
Farmville, Virginia, as part of the Appomattox Campaign, near the end of the
American Civil War. The Confederates were defeated.
5/4/1865, Union troops destroyed the Confederate capital,
Richmond, Virginia.
3/4/1865, Battle at Namozine Church, Virginia (Appomattox
Campaign)
2/4/1865, Grant broke through at Petersburg, forcing the
Confederates to abandon Richmond.
2/3/1865, President
Lincoln rejected
Confederate attempts to negotiate, demanding unconditional surrender.
22/2/1865, Wilmington, the last Confederate port, fell to the
Union forces.
17/2/1865, Confederate
troops abandoned Charleston. Sherman’s forces occupied Columbia, South
Carolina.
6/2/1865, Robert E Lee became Commander of the Confederate forces in America.
1/2/1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Resolution proposing the Thirteenth
Amendment, abolishing slavery in the USA.
21/1/1865, Sherman left Savannah, starting an advance through the
Carolinas.
24/12/1864, General Sherman captured Savannah, Georgia, from the Confederates.
1/12/1864, George Dallas, US statesman, died (born
10/7/1792).
15/11/1864, General Sherman set out on his march to Savannah, leaving Atlanta a ruin so the Confederates
could not use it. He destroyed all arsenals, public buildings, machine
shops, and depots, having evacuated all civilians.
31/10/1864, Nevada became the 36th State of the Union.
19/10/1864, At the Battle of Cedar Creek, in the American Civil War, General
Sheridan defeated the Confederates.
24/9/1864, Joshua Bates, US financier, died in London
(born in Weymouth, Massachusetts 10/10/1788).
19/9/1864, Sheridan repulsed Early at the Battle of Winchester, Virginia.
2/9/1864, Sherman took Atlanta, then marched across Georgia towards
Savannah.
17/8/1864, Eight crewmen on
the Confederate submarine HL Hunley sank the Union warship Housatonic
with an explosive charge, killing five Northern sailors. This was the first time a submarine had sunk an enemy ship in wartime.
The Hunley surfaced to signal success to shore with a blue light, then
resubmerged. She never resurfaced.
7/8/1864, Philip Sheridan replaced Hunter.
5/8/1864, A Federal fleet
under David
Farragut won the Battle of Mobile Bay.
28/7/1864, At the Second Battle of
Atlanta, the South under General Hood was again defeated.
22/7/1864, General Sherman defeated Southern troops under General John Bell Hood, aged 33,
at the Battle of Atlanta.
12/7/1864, Federal forces
defending Washington DC repulsed Early.
5/7/1864, Early invaded Maryland, aiming at Washington DC.
27/6/1864, Battle of Kenesaw
Mountains, Georgia. Confederate troops defeated Sherman’s forces, killing 2,000
of them to losses of only 270 of themselves.
18/6/1864, The USS
Kearsarge, captained by John Wilmslow, sank the British built warship
Alabama, a Confederate ship, off Cherbourg.
15/6/1864, Arlington
Cemetery, the site of the unknown soldier, was established near Washington.
5/6/1864, Battle of
Wilderness; Unionist victory.
3/6/1864, Battle
of Cold Harbor. Fought in Virginia during the American Civil War, General Ulysses
S Grant’s Unionist forces suffered heavy losses, 12,000 men, in an
ill-judged attack on General Robert E Lee’s well-defended
Confederate position. Although a Confederate
victory, this battle served to maintain the Unionist strategy of maintaining unremitting pressure on the South..
23/5/1864, Battle
of North Anna; Confederate victory.
21/5/1864, The Battle of
Spottsylvania Courthouse ended.
19/5/1864, David Hunter replaced Sigel as Union Commander in the Shenandoah
Valley.
15/5/1864, Battle
of Drewry’s Bluff; Confederate victory.
11/5/1864, Battle
of Yellow Tavern; Unionist victory.
7/5/1864, Sherman
launched a campaign against Joseph Johnston in Georgia.
9/3/1864, General Ulyssses Grant
was made Commander in Chief of the Union forces in the American Civil War.
2/3/1864, US President
Lincoln rejected Confederate General Lee’s call for peace talks, demanding surrender.
23/11/1863, The Battle of Chattanooga in the American Civil War. The Confederates under Bragg were heavily defeated.
19/11/1863. Abraham Lincoln
delivered the Gettysburg Address, at the dedication of the
military cemetery at Gettysburg. He said ‘government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.
2/11/1863, US President Lincoln was invited to make a speech at the dedication of
the new cemetery at Gettysburg. Jefferson Davis visited Charleston and
publicly stated that he believed the city would not fall.
17/10/1863, US Secretary of
War Edwin
Stanton boarded a train in Indianapolis, with orders for him to
assume command of the Military Division of the Mississippi.
3/10/1863. President Lincoln declared the last Thursday
in November to be a national holiday of Thanksgiving.
19/9/1863, The Battle of Chickamauga in the American Civil War. Confederate forces under Bragg won, but at a cost of over 2,000 dead
and 14,600 wounded.
13/9/1863, Cyrus Adler, US historian (died 1940) was
born.
26/8/1863, John Floyd, US politician, died (born
1/6/1807)
21/8/1863, The Quantrill raid, on Lawrence, Kansas.
11/7/1863, Conscription
began for the Unionist Army in the US Civil war. Draft riots broke out in New
York and other cities; 1,200 people were killed.
4/7/1863, Confederate
forces under General
Joseph Pemberton surrendered unconditionally to Federal troops who
had besieged Vicksburg since May. This
effectively split Confederate territory in two.
3/7/1863, The Battle of Gettysburg,, Pennsylvania, in the American Civil War, ended with the Confederate Army under General Robert E Lee
routed and over 50,000 dead or wounded.
The Union victory was under General Meade
1/7/1863, The Battle of Gettysburg began. It ended on
3/7/1863 with a Unionist victory, although both sides lost heavily (Unionists,
23,000; Confederates, 25,000). With his defeat at Gettysburg, General Lee
retreated having lost any hopes of foreign support for his cause.
26/6/1863, Andrew Foote,
US Admiral, died (born 12/9/1806).
20/6/1863, West Virginia became the 35th State to join the Union.
3/6/1863, Lee began a campaign into Pennsylvania, partly to relieve pressure on his
army in Virginia. This led to the Battle
of Gettysburg, 1/7/1863.
10/5/1863, US General Stonewall Jackson died (born
21/1/1824).
6/5/1863, Lee (Confederate) defeated Hooker
(Unionist) at the Battle of
Chancellorsville.
3/5/1863, Despite a
Confederate victory, their best General, Stonewall Jackson, was seriously injured. This
day his arm was amputated; on 10/5/1863 he died of pneumonia.
30/4/1863, General Lee learnt
of Hooker’s
flanking manoeuvre and sent most of his forces to counter it, under Stonewall
Jackson.
29/4/1863, Federal
troops crossed the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg to hold Lee’s
forces in place whilst the flanking manoeuvre was completed.
27/4/1863, Hooker launched
a flanking movement against Robert E Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at
Fredericksburg.
2/4/1863, Bread
riots in Richmond, Virginia, as women protested at food shortages and high
prices.
3/3/1863, President Lincoln signed the Conscription Act, compelling US citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay
US$300. This would bolster the army and top up the war coffers.
26/1/1863, Joseph Hooker replaced Ambrose Burnside as Commander of the Army of
the Potomac.
2/1/1863, The Battle of
Stones River ended with Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg withdrawing from
Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
13/12/1862, At the Battle of Fredericksburg in the
American Civil War, Lee’s Confederate forces defeated Major General Burnside’s soldiers, who were
attempting to capture the town of Fredericksburg, despite being heavily
outnumbered.
26/10/1862, McClellan crossed from Maryland into Virginia.
22/9/1862, In a deliberate attempt to cause social disruption
in the Confederacy, President Lincoln
proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the South from 1/1/1863.
17/9/1862, Battle of Antietam, in the American Civil War. Although technically a Confederate victory,
both sides suffered major casualties and the Union cause gained enough
credibility to issue their Emancipation
Proclamation. In particular Lee’s Confederate forces could not now invade
the North and had to retreat back into Virginia.
4/9/1862, Lee invaded Maryland. McClellan
pursued him.
2/9/1862, Lincoln removed Pope
from command after his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and placed McClellan
in charge of all Federal troops in the Washington area.
30/8/1862, At the second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia,Union
forces under Pope
were defeated by Confederate forces
under Lee,
helped by Jackson.
3/8/1862, Lincoln recalled McClellan’s army. Lee launched an offensive in
northern Virginia.
1/7/1862, Battle of Malvern Mill; Unionist victory.
27/6/1862, Battle of
Gaine’s Mill; Confederate victory.
26/6/1862, Battle of
Mechanicsville; Unionist victory.
9/6/1862, Battle of
Port Republic; Confederate victory.
8/6/1862, Battle of
Cross Keys; Confederate victory.
6/6/1862, Turner Ashby, US
cavalry leader, died in a cavalry fight in Harrisonburg, Virginia (born 1824 in
Virginia).
31/5/1862, In the US
Civil War, Federal troops withdrew from the area between the James and York
Rivers, after suffering heavy losses.
25/5/1862, Battle of
Winchester; Confederate victory.
20/5/1862, The Homestead Act was voted in by US
Congress. It Specified that any US citizen, or alien wishing to become a
citizen, could have free, apart from a US$ 10 registration fee, 160 acres of
Western land provided they made certain improvements and lived there for 5
years.
8/5/1862, Battle of
McDowell; Confederate victory.
2/5/1862, Union forces occupied Baton Rouge.
1/5/1862, Union forces occupied New Orleans.
28/4/1862, Union naval
forces led by Flag Officer David Farragut captured New Orleans.
15/4/1862, Nashville, Tennessee, became the first Confederate
capital to fall to Union forces.
7/4/1862, In the American
Civil War, the Federal Army under Grant defeated the Confederates under General Joseph
Johnson, on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, near the
Tennessee River.
6/4/1862, The Battle of Shiloh began.
23/3/1862, Unionists
defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Kernstown.
17/3/1862, McClellan’s Army of
the Potomac began its campaign against Richmond.
9/3/1862, The first
battle between iron-clad ships took place in the American Civil War. Merrymack was forced to retreat by the
Union ship Monitor. This blocked Confederate access to New York, and
gave the Unionists command of the sea. The Monitor was the first ship to be
fitted with a revolving gun turret allowing her to fire at any target
regardless of direction and after 1862 all combat ships were fitted with this
turret.
4/3/1862, Confederate
forces under Henry
Sibley took Santa Fe.
1/3/1862, Stonewall Jackson received
orders to prevent Federal forces in the Shenandoah Valley from advancing
westward through gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains and threatening Richmond,
Virginia.
25/2/1862, ‘Greenbacks’,
American banknotes, were first issued during the Civil War by Abraham Lincoln.
8/11/1861, The Unionist
warship San Jacinto removed Confederate Commissioners from the British
mailship Trent.
7/11/1861, Union forces
won a major victory over the Confederates at Port Royal, South Carolina.
24/10/1861, The Pony Express Mail Service in America,
running from St Joseph in Missouri to Sacramento in California, ended after
operating for just over 18 months. The Transcontinental telegraph line across
the USA was completed.
21/10/1868, Unionist forces were defeated at the Battle of
Ball’s Bluff.
2/10/1861, At the Battle of
Bulls Bluff, on the Potomac River, the Unionists were defeated.
20/9/1861, The Battle of Lexington.
19/8/1861, The passport system was introduced in the USA.
16/8/1861, President
Lincoln barred all commerce with
the Confederacy.
10/8/1861, Union forces under General Nathaniel Lyon were
defeated at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri.
21/7/1861, The first thrust
by Unionist forces towards the Confederate capital at Richmond was repulsed at
the first Battle of Bull Run.
18/7/1861, Skirmish at
Blackburn’s Ford, Virginia.
14/7/1861, Nathan Appleton, US politician, died in Boston
(born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 6/10/1779).
10/6/1861, Battle of Big
Bethel, Virginia.
8/6/1861, Tennessee became
the 11th State to leave the Union.
3/6/1861, Stephen Douglas, US statesman, died (born
23/4/1813).
24/5/1861, Federal troops
crossed the River Potomac and occupied Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia.
13/5/1861, Britain declared its neutrality in the American Civil War.
17/4/1861, Virginia voted to
secede from the United States, after the Battle of Fort Sumter and Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers.
15/4/1861, President Lincoln called up 75,000 militiamen for 3 months.
14/4/1861, The Battle of Fort Sumter ended. Confederates captured the fort.
12/4/1861, The American
Civil War began between the 23
northern states and the 11 southern states. The Confederates fired shots on
Fort Sumter. See 26/5/1865, end of Civil War. On 20/12/1860 South Carolina had seceded from the Union and between
9/1/1861 and 1/2/1861 six other states also seceded, mainly over the slavery
issue. They set up the Confederate states.
Governor Pickens sent
commissioners to Washington to claim possession of all US property in his
state, including the forts on Charleston harbour. The northern, Union, forces meanwhile covertly abandoned Fort
Moultrie, untenable against a land attack, and reinforced their position at Fort Sumter, on 26/12/1860. President Abraham
Lincoln was inaugurated at Washington on 4/3/1861. Lincoln
faced the dilemma that seven slave states had seceded but eight remained in the
Union. Any attempt at coercion would push these eight, apart possibly from
Delaware, into the Confederacy. Many in
the North favoured ‘letting the wayward sisters depart in peace’, and did not
want war. The South was less averse to war because it believed the other slave states would rally to its aid. The
South, outnumbered 2 to 1 in manpower and 30 to 1 in availability of arms,
needed overseas aid to win.
Lincoln’s inaugural speech was
really addressed to the slave states still in the Union, but sounded like a
declaration of war to the Confederacy in the South. Lincoln determined to
relieve Sumter, which might be starved into surrender by the Confederates. The
Confederacy wanted war to galvanise its citizens, a considerable minority of
whom had opposed secession. The bombardment of Sumter continued from 4.30am. on
the 12 April until the afternoon of the 13 April, when it surrendered. The
fall of Sumter ‘set the heather afire’ in the North, and the Civil War was
underway.
4/3/1861, President Abraham Lincoln,
in his inaugural address as US President, promised
to uphold the Union but also to preserve
slavery in areas where it existed.
11/2/1861, The USA unanimously passed a resolution
guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any State
8/2/1861, The
Confederate States united to fight the American Civil War, and chose Jefferson Davis as provisional President.
4/2/1861, Delegates from
the seven Southern Confederate US States met in Montgomery to draft a separate
Constitution. They were alarmed at
President Lincoln’s overwhelming victocy in the rapidly-industrialising North,
and his opposition to slavery.
29/1/1861, Kansas became the 34th State of the Union.
1860, The US songwriter Dan Emmett
“I wish I was in the land of the dixes”; referring to the banknotes issued by
the Citizen’s Bank of Louisiana, which used both English and French on its
notes, so the 10$ notes were stamped ‘dix’, and became known as dixes. Emmett’s
line became corrupted to “I wish I was in the land of Dixie”.
20/12/1860. South Carolina seceded from the USA.
13/9/1860, John Pershing, commander of US forces in
France in World
War One, was born in Linn County, Missouri.
19/3/1860, William Bryan, US political leader, was born.
6/3/1860. The Republican politician Abraham Lincoln made a campaign speech defending the right to strike.
28/1/1860, Joseph Addison Alexander, US scholar (born
24/4/1809 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) died in Princeton.
10/1/1860. The first
major factory accident in the USA. A textiles factory collapsed in St
Lawrence, Massachusetts, killing 77 people.
1859, Boston’s Public Garden was established, 108 acres.
25/12/1858, James Gadsden, US diplomat, died (born
15/5/1788).
23/11/1859, Billy the Kid, or William Bonney, was shot dead by
Sheriff Pat Garrett.
14/2/1859. Oregon became the 33rd State of the USA.
1858, Central Park
in New York opened to the public, although it was not completed until 1863.
9/11/1858, The New
York Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert.
29/7/1858, US diplomat Townsend Harris persuaded Japan to grant further trade
privileges to the USA.
13/7/1858, US anthropologist Robert Culin was born in
Philadelphia (died 8/4/1929).
16/6/1858. In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, US Senate
candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery
issue had to be addressed. He declared ‘a house divided against itself cannot
stand’.
11/5/1858. Minnesota became the 32nd State of the USA.
23/12/1856, James Buchanan Duke, US industrialist, was
born in Durham, North Carolina (died 10/10/1925 in New York).
22/12/1856, Frank B Kellogg,
US politician, was born.
2/11/1856, Samuel Hoar,
US lawyer, died (born 18/5/1778)
9/11/1856, John Clayton,
US politician, died (born 24/7/1796).
2/9/1856, Jeremiah Jenks,
US economist, was born.
4/7/1855. New
York became the 13th state to
ban the production or sale of alcoholic beverages. For more on Prohinition see Morals-Punishment.
5/7/1854, In America, the
Republican Party was officially founded.
30/5/1854, US Congress adopted the Kansas-Nebraska Act,
nullifying the Missouri Compromise.
See also Race Equality,
end of slavery
13/4/1854, Richard Ely, US economist, was born.
31/3/1854, The USA and Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa,
opening up the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
28/2/1854, The United States Republican Party was formed, in Ripon, Wisconsin.
1/2/1854, New York’s Astor Libraty
opened, with 80,000 books.
30/12/1853, The Gadsden Purchase was agreed with Mexico. The USA paid Mexico US$10
million, and received a tract of land south of the Gila River. This was
arranged by James
Gadsden, aged 65.
14/7/1853, The first US World Fair opened in New York. The
event was modelled on London’s 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.
8/7/1853, US Commodore Matthew
Perry steamed into Japan’s Edo Bay (now
Tokyo) with his ‘black ships’ and demanded that the country open up to US trade.
He backed up his demand with cannon fire. For 250 years Japan had been a feudal
state run by the Tokugawa shoguns.
31/12/1852, Henry Carter Adams, US economist, was born.
29/6/1852, Henry Clay, US politician, died (born 12/4/1777).
28/12/1851, Perry Belmont, US politician, was born in New
York.
22/10/1851, Archibald Alexander, US Presbyterian
clergyman, died in Princeton, New Jersey (born 17/4/1772 in Virginia).
18/9/1851, The New
York Times was first published. It
was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond.
5/9/1851, Thomas Gallaudet,
US educator of the deaf and dumb, died (born 10/12/1787).
13/8/1851, Felix Adler,
US educationalist (died 24/4/1933) was born.
3/6/1851, George Adams,
US historian (died 26/5/1925) was born.
19/4/1850, The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty between the USA
and UK was signed. It was an agreement on the terms for building a canal across
Nicaragua; under this treaty, neither party would exercise exclusive control
over such a canal or fortify it. The US
and the UK each had territorial interests in Central America, and were
suspicious of each other’s activities in the region. Ultimately this Treaty
was superseded by a similar neutralisation policy regarding the Panama Canal under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1902.
15/2/1850, Albert Cummins, US politician, was born (died
30/7/1926).
12/8/1849, Albert Gallatin, US statesman, died (born
29/1/1761).
10/5/1849, In New
York, 22 died and 56 were injured as troops fired on anti-British riots sparked by Irish gangs. The mob,
armed with bricks and clubs, had gathered outside the Astor Place Opera House
to revile the British actor Charles Macready, who had scorned the
vulgarity of Americans.
5/3/1849, The US
Departmwent of the Interior was created, to administer the large areas added to the US by
the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Territories. It became custodian of the nations’s resources.
24/6/1848, Brooks Adams, US historian, (died 13/2/1927)
was born.
29/5/1848, Wisconsin became the 30th State of the Union.
29/3/1848, John Jacob Astor, US fur merchant and
philanthropist, died in New York City (born 17/7/1763 in Walldorf, Germany).
19/3/1848, Wyatt Earp, American law enforcer, was born in
Monmouth, Illinois.
2/2/1848. Mexico finally collapsed after nearly 2 years of war
with the USA, in which 13,000 US
soldiers were killed. Under the Treaty of Hidalgo, signed at Vera Cruz, Mexico
surrendered Texas, New Mexico, and California for a payment of US$15million.
The size of the USA was thus increased by nearly a third. The Mexicans feared
US occupation of their own country and had no money left to fund the war.
1847, The southern portion of the District of Columbia (see 1790, 1801),
south of the Potomac River and neglected by Washington DC including Alexandria
City, voted to return to Virgina State.
14/9/1847. US troops stormed and captured Mexico City, ending the US war with Mexico. With US forces
capturing Texas, New Mexico and California, Mexico lost a third of its territory.
5/9/1847. Jesse James, American outlaw, was born near
Kansas City. With his elder brother, Frank, he led the first gang to carry out train robberies.
10/7/1847, The first
Chinese migrants arrived in the USA. They came on the ship Kee
Ying, from Canton (Guangzhou).
See also Mexico
C:\Users\piggles\Desktop\Desktop\myweb4\images\000SouthCentrAmeric.htmfor
Mexican War 1846-48
18/4/1847, US troops
under General
Winfield Scott defeated Mexican forces under Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo.
12/4/1847, During the war
between the USA and Mexico (1846-1848), this day US General Winfield Scott
met the first serious resistance to his advance on Mexico City.
23/2/1847, US forces
under General
Zachary Taylor defeated the Mexicans under Santa Anna at Buena Vista. The
US had ambitions to occupy the entire North American continent (the Manifest
Destiny), including possibly Mexico itself. The US had taken what is now New
Mexico and California (Upper California to Mexico).
26/1/1847, John Clark,
US economist, was born.
28/12/1846. Iowa was admitted as the 29th (non-slave) State of the USA.
25/12/1846. US troops defeated the Mexicans near Las Cruces,
virtually completing the conquest of New Mexico.
12/12/1846. The USA and Colombia agreed
to grant the USA transit rights on the narrow isthmus of Panama between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
10/8/1846, The
Smithsonian Institute was founded in Washington DC; it was established by a
bequest from the British scientist James Smithson.
15/6/1846. Britain
agreed with the USA that Oregon was US territory. All land west of the
Rockies and below the 49th parallel was to be US territory.
5/7/1846, Joseph Foraker, US politician, was born.
14/6/1846, The start
of the Black Bear revolt against Mexican rule in California.
Settlers in the Sacramento Valley demanded in independent republic.
13/5/1846. The USA declared war on Mexico. US Congress authorised US$ 10 million to fund the
war and to recruit 50,000 troops. Mexican
troops had crossed the Rio Grande into US territory (Texas), sparking the war.
26/2/1846, Buffalo Bill, American Army Scout and showman,
was born on a farm in Scott County, Iowa, as William Frederick Cody.
13/1/1846, US troops were directed to advance to the Rio
Grande, in anticipation of the failure of negotiations with Mexico.
1845, The US Naval Academy was
founded in Annapolis, Maryland.
29/12/1845, Texas became the 28th State of the Union.
29/3/1845, The UK and France laid proposals before Mexico,
that Texas should become independent but should not seek to ally with any other
country; they were concerned about the rapid growth of the US (see 1/3/1845).
28/3/1845. Mexico severed relations with the USA
following America’s ratification of the annexation of Texas on 1/3/1845,
after an almost unanimous vote in favour by the Texas electorate. On
29./12/1845 Texas became the 28th state of the USA.
1/3/1845,
US President
Tyler approved the decision to annex Texas to the United
States, just three days before the accession of President James K Polk. Both the UK and France
were now concerned at the great expansion of the USA. See
29/3/1845.
3/6/1844,
Garrett Hobart,
US Vice-President, was born (died 21/11/1899).
7/3/1844,
Anthony
Comstock, US moralist, was born in Connecticut (died 21/9/1913
in New York).
24/11/1843,
Richard Croker,
US politician, was born.
29/8/1843,
David Hill,
US politician, was born (died 30/10/1910).
28/5/1843, Noah Webster, American lexicographer who first
compiled Webster’s Dictionary in 1828, died in New Haven, Connecticut aged 84.
1/4/1843, John Armstrong, US soldier and politician
(born 25/11/1758 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania) died in Red Hook, New York.
13/2/1843, Isaac Hull, US Commodore, died (born
9/3/1775).
11/1/1843, Francis Scott Key, the American lawyer and
poet who wrote the words of the US national anthem The Star Spangled Banner
in 1814, died.
See also Mexico for
events with USA at this time
4/11/1842, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd, member of a
slave-owning family in Kentucky.
9/8/1842, The USA and
Britain settled a dispute over the US-Canada border in the Maine region.
2/1/1842,
The first wire suspension bridge in the USA opened, spanning the Schuykill River
near Philadelphia.
6/11/1841, Nelson Aldrich, US politician, was born in
Foster, Rhode Island.
10/4/1841, The New York
Tribune was first published.
8/3/1841, Oliver Wendell Jr, US Supreme Court Justice,
was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
See https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/teaching-american-history-ancient-maps--353110427005679672/
for map of growth of the
USA.
15/1/1841, Charles Briggs,
US scholar, was born.
1840, From New York to Boston
took 6 hours by train, or an overnight steamer journey; cost of the journey was
7 US$. From New York to Philadelphia by train and ferry took 6 ½ hours, down
from 3 days in 1817. However if the Delaware river froze over the journey time
was longer as passengers had to walk across the ice rather than use the ferry.
6/8/1840, Adolph Bandelier, US archaeologist, was born
in Bern, Switzerland.
27/2/1840, Isaac Chauncey, US naval commander, died (born
20/2/1772).
9/2/1840, William Sampson, US naval commander, was born
(died 6/5/1902).
8/7/1839, John D Rockerfeller, American philanthropist, was born in Richford, New York State.
26/6/1839, Simon Brute, US prelate, died (born
20/3/1779).
30/1/1839, Samuel Armstrong, US US soldier and
philanthropist, was born in Maui, Hawaii (died 11/5/1893 in Hampton, Virginia).
8/10/1838, John Hay, US statesman, was born (died
1/7/1905).
11/9/1838, John Ireland, US Catholic priest, was born.
1/9/1838, William Clark, US explorer, died (born
1/8/1770).
4/7/1838, The territory of Iowa was established, with Robert Lucas as governor.
16/6/1838, Cushman Davis, US politician, was born (died
17/11/1900).
10/5/1838, John Wilkes Booth, American actor who
assassinated President
Abraham Lincoln, was born in Baltimore, Maryland.
1837, Atlanta, Georgia, was
founded as a railhead.
26/12/1837, George Dewey, US naval officer, was born.
25/11/1837, Andrew Carnegie, US industrialist and
philanthropist, was born in Dunfermline, Scotland.
24/9/1837, Marcus Hanna, US politician, was born (died
15/2/1904).
25/8/1837. The Government
in Washington refused to admit Texas to the Union. The US was anxious to
maintain its neutrality in the dispute between Texas and Mexico, and did not want
to, therefore, take the step of admitting one of the belligerents to the Union.
30/5/1837, Daniel Brinton, US archaeologist, was born
(died 31/7/1899).
18/3/1837, Grover Cleveland, Democrat, and twice US President, was born in Caldwell, New
Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian Minister.
3/3/1837. On his last day in office, President Jackson recognised the Lone Star Republic of Texas.
26/1/1837. Michigan became the 26th State of the USA.
7/12/1836, Stephen Austin, US pioneer, died.
14/9/1836, Aaron Burr, US politician, died (born
6/2/1756).
2/7/1836, US Congress passed an Act approving the founding
of Dubuque, Iowa.
15/6/1836, Arkansas became the 25th State of the Union.
27/5/1836, Jay Gould, US financier, was born (died
2/12/1892).
21/4/1836. The Texan Army led by General Sam Houston inflicted a crushing defeat on the
Mexicans, at the battle of San Jacinto,
and took General Santa Anna prisoner.
6/3/1836, The siege
of the Alamo ended.
2/3/1836. Texas was proclaimed a republic, by a group of 59 citizens, independent of
Mexico.
27/2/1836, Alexander Russell Alger, US soldier and
politician (died 14/1/1907 in Washington DC) was born Lafayette, Ohio.
23/2/1836. The Mexican Army, with 5,000 soldiers, under
Antonio de Lopez Santa Anna, laid siege to the Alamo, a fortified
mission station defended by 187 Texans, in San Antonio, Texas. Santa Anna had
invaded Texas after Texas had declared itself independent of the USA and
elected its own President. The Mexicans captured the Alamo on 6/3/1836,
slaughtering all 187 defenders. Deaths included William Travis, Jim Bowie, and
Davey Crockett. Only 2 women survived, who had sheltered behind the sacristy.
The Mexicans told one of them, Susanna Dickinson, a blacksmith’s wife, to pass
the message on to other Texans that further fighting was hopeless.
22/10/1835, Sam Houston was sworn in as President of
Texas.
2/10/1835, Texan-Americans
started their campaign for independence from Mexico by starting an armed
rebellion against the government of Antonio de Santa Anna in the town of Gonzales.
Americans had settled the area from 1825, when Texas was largely undeveloped
and there was little interference from the Mexican Government. However the
current administration was changing Mexico from a federation of states into a
centralised state.
18/8/1835, Marshall Field, US merchant and philanthropist,
was born (died 16/1/1906).
27/3/1835, Texan rebels were massacred by the Mexican Army at
Gohad.
31/1/1835, An assassination
attempt on US President Andrew Jackson
failed when the gun of Richard Lawson, house painter, jammed twice.
Lawrence claimed to be the rightful heir to the British throne.
15/9/1834, William Crawford, US statesman, died (born
24/2/1771).
23/4/1834, Chauncey Depew, US politician, was born.
1/4/1834, James Fisk, US financier, was born (killed
6/1/1872).
20/3/1834, Charles William Eliot, US educator, was born
in Boston, Massachusetts (died in Maine,
22/8/1926).
29/1/1834, Workers constructing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
(started 1828) rioted. President Jackson ordered Secretary of War James Cass
to send in Federal troops to restore order.
28/7/1833, William Bainbridge, US naval commodore, died
(born in Princeton, New Jersey, 7/5/1774).
1/6/1833, John Harlan, US jurist, was born.
24/5/1833, Brooklyn
Bridge in New York was opened.
14/5/1833, James Donald Cameron, US politician, was born.
11/2/1833, Melville Fuller, Chief Justice of the US
Supreme Court, was born (died 1910).
26/1/1833, Newton Bliss, US politician, was born in Fall
River, Massachusetts.
1832, The US Army daily liquor
ration was abolished.
13/7/1832, An expedition led by Henry Schoolcraft discovered the
source of the Mississippi River.
26/6/1832, Mexico began to assert a more authoritarian rule
over the US colonists in its territory of Texas. On this day the US colonists
rebelled, and captured the Mexican Army fort of Velasco.
20/6/1832, Benjamin Bristol, US politician, was born
(died 22/6/1896).
1/5/1832, Captain
Benjamin de Bourneville started on a 3-year expedition to explore
the Rocky Mountains.
25/1/1832, The State
of Virginia rejected the abolition of slavery.
24/1/1832, Joseph Choate, US lawyer, was born.
17/1/1832, Henry Baird, US historian, was born (died in
New York City, 11/11/1906).
26/12/1831, Stephen Girard, US financier and
philanthropist, died (born 20/5/1750).
See also Mexico
for events with USA at this time
21/4/1831, Texans
defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto.
5/9/1830, Francis William Allen, US classical scholar,
was born in Northborough, Massachusetts (died December 1889).
31/1/1830, James Blaine, US statesman, was born in
Pennsylvania (died in Washington DC 27/1/1893).
21/12/1829, Laura Bridgman, US blind deaf mute, was born
(died24/5/1889).
30/10/1829, Roscoe Conkling, US politician, was born (died
18/4/1888).
22/9/1829, William Belknap, US politician, was born in
Newburgh, New York (died in Washington DC 13/10/1890).
27/6/1829, James Smithson, British scientist whose
bequest established the Smithsonian
Institute at Washington to encourage scientific research, died in Genoa.
17/5/1829, John Jay, US statesman, died (born
12/12/1745).
15/5/1829, US Congress
declared the slave trade to be piracy.
2/3/1829, William Boyd Allison, US legislator, was born
in Perry, Ohio (died in Dubuque, Iowa, 4/8/1908).
29/10/1828, Thomas Bayard, US statesman, was born in
Wilmington, Delaware (died in Dedham, Massachusetts, 28/9/1898).
27/10/1828, Jacob Cox, US General, was born (died
4/1/1900).
8/9/1828, Joshua Chamberlain, US soldier, was born.
9/5/1828, Charles Cramp, US shipbuilder, was born
21/4/1828, The American Dictionary of the English language
was published. This both standardised
American English and put cultural difference between it and British English.
24/3/1828, Horace Gray, US jurist, was born (died
15/9/1902).
24/2/1828, US soldier Jacob Brown died (born 9/5/1775)
11/2/1828, De Witt Clinton, US politician, died (born
2/3/1760).
1/2/1828, George Edmunds, US politician, was born.
19/3/1827, James Geddes, US soldier, was born (died
21/2/1887).
10/2/1827, Edward Atkinson, US economist, was born in
Brookline, Massachusetts (died in Boston 11/12/1905).
31/10/1826, Joseph Hawley, US politician, was born (died
17/3/1905).
29/8/1826, George Hoar, US politician, was born (died
30/9/1904).
19/6/1826, Charles Brace, US philanthropist, was born I
Litchfield, Connecticut (died in Campfer, Tirol, 11/8/1890).
9/11/1825, Ambrose Hill, US Confederate soldier, was born
(killed 2/4/1865).
26/10/1825, The Erie
Canal, linking New York with the Great Lakes via Niagara and the Hudson River,
begun 4/7/1817, was completed. Influenced by Governor DeWitt Clinton the New
York state legislature agreed to fund the US$ 7 million project. The canal, 363
miles long, 40 foot wide, 4 foot deep, with 82 locks, would make New York the
principal port of America.
23/5/1824, Ambrose Burnside, US soldier, was born (died
13/9/1881).
14/2/1824, Winfield Hancock, US General, was born (died
9/2/1886).
21/1/1824, Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, the General who
commanded Confederate forces in the American Civil War, was born.
2/12/1823, President Monroe of the USA declared that no
part of the Americas is now ‘res nullius’, or open to further European
colonisation, although existing European influences would be tolerated. This was
the basis of the Monroe Doctrine.
28/7/1823, Manasseh Cutler, US statesman, died (born
13/5/1742).
27/6/1823, Dorman Eaton, US lawyer, was born (died
23/12/1899).
5/6/1823, George Angell, US philanthropist, was born in
Southbridge, Massachusetts (died 16/3/1909 in Boston).
18/4/1823, George Cabot, US politician, died (born
16/12/1751)
1/4/1823, Simon Buckner, US soldier and politician, was
born.
23/3/1823, Schuyler Colfax, US politician, was born (died
13/1/1885).
27/2/1823, William Franklin, US Federal General in the
Civil War, was born (died 8/3/1903).
31/7/1822, Abram Hewitt, US politician, was born (died
18/1/1903).
23/7/1822, Darius Couch, US soldier, was born (died
12/2/1897).
18/7/1822, Theodore Dwight, US jurist, was born (died
28/6/1892).
27/4/1822, Ulysses Grant, General in the Union Army,
Democrat, and 18th President,
was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, the son of a tanner.
24/10/1821, Elias Boudinot, US revolutionary leader, died
in Burlington, New Jersey (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2/5/1740).
7/10/1821, Henry Richard Anderson, US soldier, was born
in South Carolina (died 26/6/1879 in Beaufort, South Carolina).
10/8/1821, Missouri became the 24th State of the Union.
13/7/1821, Nathan Forrest, US Confederate General, was born (died 29/10/1877).
12/7/1821, Daniel Hill, US Confederate soldier, was born
(died 24/9/1889).
21/1/1821, John Breckinbridge, US soldier and political
leader, was born (died 17/5/1875).
14/11/1820, Anson Burlingame, US statesman, was born (died
23/2/1870).
26/9/1820, Death of US frontiersman Daniel Boone. He explored the
Kentucky area.
26/8/1820, James Harlan, US politician, was born (died
5/10/1899).
23/5/1820, James Eads, US engineer, was born (died
8/3/1887).
15/5/1820, Congress in
the USA designated the slave trade as a form
of piracy.
4/4/1820, Charles Devens, US lawyer, was born (died
7/1/1891).
22/3/1820, Stephen Decatur, US naval commander, died
(born 5/1/1779).
15/3/1820, Congress
reached a compromise on the slavery issue by admitting Maine
(23rd state of the Union) to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. This measure was to
keep the number of slave and non-slave states equal.
9/3/1820, The USA
passed the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion by rich land
speculators.
8/2/1820, General William Sherman, American Union Army
commander during the Civil War, was born in Lancaster, Ohio.
1819, The US concluded a treaty
with Spain
substituting the River Sabine (present day boundary between Louisiana and
Texas) for the Rio Grande as boundary between them. Spain/Mexico thereby gained
the right to govern what is now Texas.
14/12/1819, Alabama became the 22nd State of the USA.
14/9/1819, Henry Hunt, US soldier, was born (died 11/2/1889).
26/6/1819, Abner Doubleday, US soldier, was born (died
26/1/1893).
28/4/1819, Ezra Abbot, US scholar of the Bible, was born in Jackson,
Maine.
21/4/1819, Oliver Evans, US industrialist, died (born
1755).
1/3/1819, Alexander Bell, US educationalist, was born
(died 1905).
1818, With the number of US
States growing, the US passed the Third
Flag Act (see 1794),
returning to the original thirteen stripes, with an extra star for each new
State. The exact pattern of the stars was still variable, see 1912.
3/12/1818, Illinois became the 21st State of the USA.
5/11/1818, Benjamin Butler, US politician, was born (died
11/1/1893).
20/10/1818, The USA and
Britain agreed the border between the USA and
Canada to be the 49th parallel.
23/8/1818, The first steamship service began on the Great
Lakes, North America.
31/5/1818, John Albion Andrew, US politician, was born in
Windham, Maine (died 30/10/1867 in Boston).
28/5/1818, Pierre Beauregard, US soldier, was born near
New Orleans (died in New Orleans 20/2/1893).
20/5/1818, William Fargo, co-founder of the freight
carrier Wells Fargo, was born.
10/5/1818, Paul Revere, who made the famous ride from
Charlestown to Lexington to warn US militia of British troops, died aged 83 in
Boston, Massachusetts.
23/3/1818, Don Carlos Buell, US soldier, was born (died
19/11/1898).
13/2/1818, George Clarke, US frontiersman, died (born
19/11/1752).
6/2/1818, William Maxwell Evarts, US statesman, was born
in Boston, Massachusetts (died 28/2/1901 in New York City).
28/1/1818, George Boutwell, US statesman, was born in
Brookline, Massachusetts (died in Groton, Massachusetts, 28/2/1905).
10/12/1817, Mississippi became the 20th State of the USA.
16/8/1817, Henry Davis, US politician, was born (died
30/12/1865).
4/8/1817, Frederick Frelinghuysen, US statesman, was
born (died 20/5/1885).
16/6/1817, Alexander Dallas, US statesman, died (born
21/6/1759).
22/4/1817, Andrew Curtin, US politician, was born (died
7/10/1894).
22/3/1817, Braxton Bragg, US soldier, was born in North
Carolina (died in Galveston, Texas, 27/9/1876).
2/2/1817, Richard Ewell, US soldier, was born (died
25/1/1872).
11/12/1816, Indiana became the 19th State of the USA.
8/12/1816, August Belmont, US financier, was born in
Prussia (died in New York 24/11/1890).
4/11/1816, Stephen Field, US jurist, was born (died
9/4/1899).
3/11/1816, Jubal Early, US soldier, was born (died
2/3/1894).
30/10/1816, Henry Dawes, US lawyer, was born (died
5/2/1903).
31/3/1816, Francis Asbury, US clergyman, died in Spottsylvania,
Virginia.
21/2/1816, Ebenezer Hoar, US politician, was born (died
31/1/1895).
30/1/1816, Nathaniel Banks, US politician, was born in
Waltham, Massachusetts (died in Waltham, 1/9/1894).
10/11/1815, William Hardee, US soldier, was born (died
6/11/1873).
30/10/1815, Andrew Jackson Downing, US landscape gardener
(died in Yonkers, New York, 28/7/1852) was born in Newburgh, New York.
7/9/1815, Howell Cobb, US politician, was born (died
9/10/1868).
30/6/1815, Faced with US threats to bombard Algeirs, the Dey
agreed to cease piracy and release US prisoners.
3/3/1815, The USA, angered by piracy in the Mediterranean,
authorised hostility against the Bey of Algiers.
8/1/1815, The British, led by General Sir Edward Pakenham,
were defeated at New Orleans by the Americans led by Andrew Jackson. This was
the last battle Britain fought against the
USA. See 24/12/1814.
24/12/1814, The Americans and British signed a truce, The
Treaty of Ghent ending their war. The British returned all territory seized
from the USA. However it took a month for this news to reach America, the USA
heard the news on 11/1/1815, just after the battle at New Orleans (see
8/1/1815).
23/12/1814, A British advance towards New Orleans was repulsed
by the Americans.
23/11/1814, Elbridge Gerry, US statesman, died (born
17/7/1744).
13/11/1814, Joseph Hooker, US General, was born (died
31/10/1879).
13/9/1814. British troops made an unsuccessful attack on
Baltimore. During the battle, the American composer Francis Scott Key wrote a
patriotic song called ‘The Star Spangled
Banner’.
11/9/1814. US forces led by President Madison routed the
British fleet on Lake Champlain.
24/8/1814. 4,000 British
troops under General Ross invaded Washington and set fire to the White
House and the Capitol. Both were rebuilt and enlarged.
2/1/1814, John Brodhead, US historical scholar, was born
(died 6/5/1873)
10/12/1813, Zachariah Chandler, US politician, was born
(died 1/11/1879).
16/11/1813, A British naval blockade, under Admiral Warren,
began blockading US ports.
10/9/1813. The British fleet on Lake Erie was destroyed by
American warships.
7/9/1813, The term
‘Uncle Sam’ was coined by a
newspaper in Troy, New York, to describe the United States.
24/6/1813, Henry Beecher,
US preacher, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut (died in Brooklyn 8/3/1887).
23/4/1813, Stephen Douglas,
US statesman, was born (died 3/6/1861).
24/2/1813. The British warship Peacock was sunk off
Guyana by the USA.
22/1/1813. British forces defeated the Americans who were
planning an attack on Fort Detroit.
21/1/1813, John Fremont, explorer of the US Midwest, was
born (died 13/7/1890).
28/11/1812, George Curtis, US lawyer, was born (died
28/3/1894).
23/11/1812. Demoralised by a tactical error, which saw two
columns of USA forces attacking each other, the USA withdrew its forces south from Canada for the winter.
25/10/1812, The USS
President captured the British ship HMS
Macedonian in a ballet west of the Canary Islands.
17/10/1812, Naval battle between the Wasp and the Frolic
16/10/1812. British forces defeated the US army at Queenstown,
near the Niagara Falls. The Americans
were attempting to cross into Canada to eliminate
it from the war with Britain.
10/9/1812, At the Battle of Lake Erie, US ships defeated a
British naval force.
18/6/1812. War broke
out between Britain and the USA. The
USA was angered at Britain’s trade restrictions against Napoleon, which were
hampering American trade with Europe, and with the British Navy stopping USA ships and press
ganging their crews to serve for the British Navy. The American Congress voted narrowly for war
with Britain.
30/4/1812, Louisiana became the 18th State of the Union.
20/4/1812, George Clinton, US political leader, died
(born 26/7/1739).
4/4/1812. The territory of Orleans became the 18th
state of the USA, to be known as Louisiana.
20/3/1812, George Crittenden, US soldier, was born (died
27/11/1880).
1811, The grid plan street
pattern of New York was begun, to provide orderly expansion beyond the random
pattern of the oldest streets. However it was anticipated that industry would
concentrate on the shores of Manhattan Island, so more east-west streets were
built (to facilitate commuting to work) and fewer north-south avenues were
built. However the enormous growth of the city has resulted in greater demand
for north-south travel.
18/12/1811, Horace Chaflin, US merchant, was born (died
14/11/1885).
6/12/1811, A severe
earthquake hit the Mississippi
Valley. This was a geological animaly,being far from any known plate boundary.
11/10/1811, James Bowdoin, US politician, died in
Massachusetts (born in Boston, Massachusetts 7/8/1726).
19/6/1811, Samuel Chase,
US jurist, died (born 17/4/1741).
1/6/1811, William Eaton,
US soldier, died (born 23/2/1764).
25/4/1811, Francis Dana,
US jurist, died (born 13/6/1743).
24/1/1811, Henry Barnard, US educationalist, was born in
Hartford, Connecticut (died in Hartford, Connecticut 5/7/1900).
8/12/1810, Elihu Burritt, US philanthropist, was born
(died 9/3/1879).
2/11/1810. President Madison re-established freedom of
trade with France, after assurances that
European ports would be open to American trade.
27/10/1810. President Madison of the USA sends troops to
claim the western part of West Florida after a rebellion there against Spanish
rule.
19/10/1810, Cassius Clay, US politician, was born (died
22/7/1903).
10/1/1810, Jeremiah Black, US statesman, was born in
Pennsylvania (died in Pennsylvania 19/8/1883).
24/12/1809, Kit Carson, US soldier and fur trapper who did
much to open up the West to White settlers, was born in Kentucky (died
23/5/1868).
13/11/1809, John Dahlgren, US naval commander, was born
(died 12/7/1870)
4/11/1809, Benjamin Curtis, US jurist, was born (died
15/9/1874).
27/8/1809, Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President of the USA,
was born (died 4/7/1891).
3/8/1808, Hamilton Fish, US politician, was born (died
7/9/1983).
24/4/1809, Joseph Addison Alexander, US scholar (died
28/1/1860 in Princeton) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
21/4/1809, Robert Hunter, US statesman, was born (died
18/7/1887).
4/7/1808, Ames Fisher, US statesman, died (born 9/4/1878
in Dedham, Massachusetts).
18/5/1808, Jacob Albright, US clergyman, died 18/5/1808
in Muhlbach, Pennsylvania (born 1/5/1759 near Pottstown, Pennsylvania).
13/1/1808, Salmon Chase, US jurist, was born (died
7/5/1873).
27/11/1807, Oliver Ellsworth, US politician, died (born
19/4/1745).
2/7/1807, US President Jefferson closed
all US ports to British warships.
1/6/1807, John Floyd, US politician, was
born (died 26/8/1863)
26/3/1807, H W Longfellow (Henry Wadsworth), American poet, was
born in Portland, Maine.
19/1/1807, Robert E Lee, American Confederate Commander
in Chief, was born in Stratford, Virginia.
26/10/1806, Timothy Dexter, US merchant, died (born
22/2/1747).
16/10/1806, William Fessenden, US politician, was born
(died 6/9/1869).
12/9/1806, Andrew Foote, US Admiral, was born (died
26/6/1863).
10/4/1806, Horatio Gates, US General, died (born 1728).
31/3/1806, John Hale, US politician, was born (died
19/12/1873).
7/11/1805, 18 months
after they set out from St Louis, Captain Merriwether Lewis and William Clark
reached the Pacific coast of Oregon. The
expedition, backed by President Jefferson,
was to open up a trade route to the Pacific.
23/10/1805, John Bartlett, US historian, was born in
Providence, Rhode Island (died in Providence 28/5/1886).
20/2/1805, Angelina Grimke, US social reformer, was born
(died 26/10/1879).
13/2/1805, David Field, US lawyer, was born (died
13/4/1894).
12/7/1804, Alexander Hamilton, US statesman, died (born
11/1/1757).
21/10/1803, The Louisiana Purchase was ratified.
30/4/1803, The USA
purchased Louisiana from France. The deal was completed by President Thomas
Jefferson, and worked out at just under 3 cents per acre. This area of 831,000
square miles doubled the size of the USA, and was bought for $15 million.
French Foreign Minister Talleyrand offered the land unexpectedly. The USA had
been keen to buy this land, concerned about the prospect of Napoleonic
territory on their doorstep, but until now France had been reluctant to sell.
1/3/1803, Ohio became the 17th State of the USA.
4/4/1802, Dorothea Dix, US philanthropist, was born
(died 17/7/1887).
16/3/1802, The United
States Military Academy at West
Point, New York State, was founded.
1801, The District of
Columbia was officially incorporated (see 1790), and its residents could
not now vote for their former State legislatures. See also 1847.
10/11/1801, Samuel Howe, US philanthropist, was born (died
9/1/1876).
17/7/1801, A squadron of the US Navy under Richard Dale
was blockading Tripoli in protest at pirate attacks on US shipping.
5/7/1801, David Farragut, US naval hero of the Civil
War, was born in Tennessee.
14/6/1801, Benedict Arnold, US soldier, died in London,
England (born in Norwich, Connecticut, 14/1/1741).
14/5/1801, Pasha Yusuf Karamanli of Tripoli declared war on the USA.
3/10/1800, George Bancroft, US politician, was born in
Worcester, Massachusetts (died in Washington 17/1/1891).
9/5/1800, John Brown, US campaigner for the abolition of
slavery, was born (died 2/12/1859).
21/3/1800, William Blount, US politician, died in
Knoxville (born in North Carolina 26/3/1749).
7/2/1800, Millard Fillmore, 13th US
President, was born (died 8/3/1874).
17/1/1800, Caleb Cushing, US statesman, was born in
Massachusetts.
1/10/1799, Rufus Choate, US lawyer, was born (died
13/7/1859).
8/3/1799, Simon Cameron, US politician, was born (died
26/6/1889).
9/2/1799, The US navy clashed with French forces.
1/12/1798, Albert Barnes, US theologian, was born in
Rome, New York State (died in Philadelphia 24/12/1870).
24/7/1798, John Dix, US politician, was born (died
21/4/1879).
19/11/1797, Charles Anthon, US classicist, was born in New
York City (died in New York, 29/7/1867).
15/2/1797, John Bell, US politician, was born neat
Nashville, Tennessee (died 10/9/1869).
24/7/1796, John Clayton, US politician, was born (died
9/11/1856).
1/6/1796, Tennessee became the 16th State of the USA.
2/11/1795, James Polk, American Democrat and 11th President, was born in
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
1794, The US passed
the Flag Act, stipulating that for
each new State that joined, another star and
stripe would be added to the US flag. See 1818.
14/12/1794, Erastus Corning, US politician and
industrialist, was born (died 9/4/1872).
29/7/1794, Thomas Corwin, US politician, was born.
27/3/1794, The US Navy was officially created. Before
this day the American Congress had only fitted out civilian ships for
hostilities as required, but now it was decided a permanent navy was necessary.
15/12/1793, Henry Charles Carey, US economist, was born (died 1879).
8/10/1793, John Hancock, US politician, the first person to sign the Declaration of
Independence, died.
18/9/1793, The cornerstone of the north section of the Capitol Building, Washington DC, was
laid by President Washington.
22/4/1793, US President
Washington issued a Declaration of Neutrality in the Napoleonic War.
Hamilton
wanted him to support the British but Jefferson wanted him to support the French.
5/4/1793, William Thornton’s plans for the building of
the Capitol, Washington DC, were
accepted.
2/3/1793, Sam Houston, American soldier and first
President of Texas, was born.
13/10/1792, The cornerstone of the US President’s official residence,
The White House in Washington DC,
designed by James
Hoban, was laid.
5/8/1792 , Lord North, British Conservative and Prime
Minister from 1770-82, died. His
indecision led to Britain’s loss of its North American colonies.
4/8/1792, John Burgoyne, British General who had to
surrender at Saratoga in 1777 in the War of American Independence to American General Gates,
died.
10/7/1792, George Dallas, US statesman, was born (died
1/12/1864).
1/6/1792, Kentucky became the 15th State of the Union.
2/4/1792. The Mint of the United States was established at
Philadelphia, then the national capital.
The US mint struck its first silver dollars.
1791, The US passed the Fifth
Amendment. This protects against self-incrimmination, but during the
Cold War anti-Communist investigations ‘taking the fifth’ became virtually an
admission of guilt.
15/12/1791, The US Bill
of Rights was ratified by all the states, Virginia being the last State to
sign. The US passed the First Amendment which protected
free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly,
and freedom to petition the Government.
10/11/1791, Robert Hayne, US politician, was born (died
24/9/1839).
15/8/1791, Duff Green, US politician, was born (died 10/6/1875).
5/7/1791. The first
British Ambassador to the US, George Hammonds, was appointed.
4/3/1791. Vermont became the 14th State of the USA.
1790, The Revenue Marine, now
the US Coastguard, was established, to curtail smuggling.
21/12/1790, American industrialist Samuel Slater opened the first cotton mill in the USA. The mill
had 250 spindles and was powered by water, using a child labour force. Slater
had been apprenticed to William Arkwright, from whom he learnt the
textiles trade.
1/8/1790. The first census in the USA revealed a population
of nearly 4 million.
16/7/1790, Washington DC was established as the seat of US Federal
government. It was originally a diamond shape incorporating land from both
Virginia and Matryland, from the north and south of the USA. Residents could
vote for both Congress (Washington) and the State legislatures of either
Virginia or Maryland, depending on whether they lived south or north of the
River Potomac. The Disctrict of Columbia was not yet officially incorporated.
However see 1801 and 1847.
29/5/1790, Rhode Island became the 13th State of the Union; it is the smallest State in the
USA.
17/4/1790. Benjamin Franklin
died in Philadelphia, aged 84.
He invented the life-saving lightning conductor. He was determined to pursue
Puritan aims to the benefit of the common good. He also helped draft the
Declaration of Independence.
10/4/1790, The US
Congress inaugurated the American patent system.
1/2/1790, The US
Supreme Court held its first meeting
8/1/1790, George Washington gave the first State of the
Union Address.
28/12/1789, Thomas Ewing, US politician, was born (died
26/10/1871).
26/11/1789. Thanksgiving
was celebrated across America for the first time. In 1621 the indigenous
Americans had taught early Plymouth settlers how to tap the maple trees for sap
and how to plant the Indian corn. The harvest was very successful and
the Pilgrims found they had enough food to see them through the winter. The
Pilgrim Governor William Bradford proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving to be shared
by all colonists and invited the Indians to join them for three days. During
the American Revolution of the late 1770s, a Day of National Thanksgiving was
suggested by the Continental Congress and was celebrated nationwide in 1789.
Since then each President has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually
designating the fourth Thursday in November as the holiday.
21/11/1789, North Carolina became the 12th State of the Union.
23/9/1789, Silas Deane, US diplomat, died (born
24/12/1737).
2/9/1789, The US
Department of the Treasury was established.
27/7/1789, Thomas Jefferson was made head of the new US
Department of Foreign Affairs.
12/3/1789, The United
States Post Office was established.
4/3/1789, The Constitution of the United States came into
force. The first US Congress was held in New York with 59 members, each
representing a district of some 30,000 people.
11/2/1789, Ethan Allen, US soldier, died in Burlington,
Vermont (born 10/1/1739 in Litchfield, Connecticut).
7/1/1789. The first national elections were held in the USA,
and George Washington was elected
President.
10/10/1788, Joshua Bates, US financier, was born in
Weymouth, Massachusetts (died in London 24/9/1864).
13/9/1788. New York
became the Federal capital of the new United States of America.
26/7/1788. New York became the 11th State of the Union.
5/7/1788, Mather Byles, US clergyman unpopular for his
pro-Royalist views, died (born 26/3/1706).
25/6/1788, Virginia became the 10th State of the Union.
21/6/1788 (1) The
American Constitution legally came into force, after ratification by a
ninth State..
(2) New Hampshire became the 9th State of the Union.
23/5/1788, South Carolina became the 8th State of the Union.
28/4/1788, Maryland became the 7th State of the Union.
21/3/1788. A major fire destroyed nearly all of New Orleans, USA.
6/2/1788, Massachusetts became the 6th State of the Union.
9/1/1788, Connecticut became the 5th State of the Union.
2/1/1788, Georgia became the 4th State of the Union.
18/12/1787, New Jersey became the 3rd State of the Union.
12/12/1787, Pennsylvania became the 2nd State of the Union.
10/12/1787, Thomas Gallaudet, US educator of the deaf and
dumb, was born (died 5/9/1851).
7/12/1787, Delaware, the Diamond or First State, achieved Statehood.
17/9/1787, The
constitution of the United States of America was signed.
15/9/1787, George Mason, a plantation owner from Virginia,
called for an amendment to the draft US Constitution. To avoid the Federal
government becoming oppressive, he called for a clause whereby if twonthirds of
the States wished, Congress would have to agree to a convention to discuss the
proposed government change or policy. This change to Article V was
incorporated as Mason
desired.
10/9/1787, John Crittenden, US statesman, was born (died
26/7/1863)
25/5/1787. The Philadelphia Convention, headed by George Washington, began drawing up the USA
Constitution. On 17/9/1787 the Constitution was agreed by 39 out of
42 delegates.
2/4/1787, Thomas Gage, British colonial Governor of
Massachusetts, died (born 1721).
25/1/1787, An abortive attempt to seize the US arsenal at
Springfield, Massachusetts.
9/9/1786. George Washington
called for the abolition of slavery.
19/8/1786, Nathanael Greene, US General, died (born
7/8/1742).
8/1/1786, Nicholas Biddle, US financier, was born in Philadelphia
(died in Philadelphia 27/2/1844).
1/9/1785, Peter Cartwright, US Methodist preacher, was
born (died 25/9/1872).
25/11/1783. British troops evacuated from New York.
2/9/1783 Britain
recognised the United States by signing the Treaty of Paris, thus ending
the American War of Independence. By this treaty northern Florida was ceded by Britain to
the USA but on the same day Britain had signed the Treaty of Versailles, ceding
west Florida to Spain. This caused controversy for some year until the Treaty
of Madrid in 1795 in which Spain ceded lands east of the Mississippi to the
USA. The Spanish also regained Minorca from the British, and France got Senegal
and Tobago from Britain. However in Senegal the British retained the Gambia
river valley. Britain also paid a war indemnity of £10 million.
Britain had sent
a force of 60,000 men to fight a much larger population on their own ground,
when Holland, France and Spain had sided with the opposition.
23/5/1783, James Otis, US patriot (born 5/2/1725), died from
a lightning strike.
19/4/1783, US Congress officially proclaimed victory in the War of Independence.
10/11/1782, The Americans massacred the
British-backed Shawnee Indians. 1,000 Kentucky riflemen fired unremittingly on them, and
destroyed their food stockpiles.
9/10/1782, Lewis Cass, US politician, was born (died
17/6/1866).
7/1782, British troops left Savannah for England.
12/4/1782, Admiral Rodney defeated a French fleet off the
West Indies in the Battle of the Saints; named after the nearby Saints Islands.
This was during the War of American
Independence.
18/3/1782, John Calhoun, US statesman (died 31/3/1850)
was born.
14/3/1782, Thomas Benton, US politician, was born in
North Carolina (died in Washington 10/4/1858).
27/2/1782, The UK Parliament rejected Lord North’s appeal to continue the American
War. Lord North
resigned on 19/3/1782 and was replaced by Lord Rockingham.
1781, The US Department of State
was created. It was known as the Department of Foreign Affairs until 1789.
19/10/1781, British forces under Lord
Cornwallis, 7,000 soldiers, urrendered to George
Washington at Yorktown, Virginia. This was a combined force of Americans and
their French allies. This ended the
American War of Independence.
5/10/1781, After
the victory at Chesapeake Bay (5/9/1781), George Washington commenced a heavy attack on
the British besieged in Yorktown.
16/9/1781, The
British holding Yorktown scuttled ships in the estuary of Yorktown to try and
thwart a French attack by sea. The British had superior sea-power (but faced a
French naval threat) whilst the American rebels controlled the inland regions.
The British hoped that some 2,000 escaped slaves, who believed a British
victory would mean freedom for them, would enable their victory, but the
Carolinas area could not be held against American forces. In August 1781 the
British commander, Cornwallis, retreated to Virginia and
established a defensive perimeter at Yorktown, Besides French warships, the
British knew that the French commander Rochambeau was marching south from the Hudson
Valley. The British sailed south from New York to support Yorktown, but a
cannon battle off Yorktown between British and French proved inconclusive.
After five days the British fleet under Graves, outgunned, withdrew back to New
York. Yorktown was to surrender on 19/10/1781, ending the War of Independence.
5/9/1781, Battle of Chesapeake Bay, USA, between British and
French fleets. The British with 19 ships were defeated by De Grasse Tilly with 24 ships. The British
were prevented from resupplying the troops under Lord
Cornwallis, who was under siege in Yorktown.
30/8/1781, A French fleet
commanded by De Grasse Tilly arrived in Chesapeake Bay.
6/7/1781, General Cornwallis defeated General Lafayette at Jamestown Road, Virginia.
1/3/1781, The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union
were ratified by all US States.
7/10/1780, Battle of Kings Mountain. A force of
900 from North Carolina defeated 900 pro-British militia.
2/10/1780, John Andre (see 23/9/1780) was executed as a
spy.
23/9/1780, During
the War of American Independence, British agent John Andre, carrying information
that Benedict Arnold was about to surrender West Point, was captured by
American forces.
16/8/1780, Battle
of Camden, South Carolina.
12/5/1780. Charleston,
in South Carolina, surrendered with 5,000 American troops to the British under Major Benjamin
Lincoln.
2/5/1780. Louis XVI sent 6,000 men to New England to
reinforce the American forces against the British. On 11/5/1780 the Americans
began negotiating with Spain to get support; France had been pressurising Spain
to support the Americans.
4/1/1780, Horace Binney, US lawyer, was born in
Pennsylvania (died 1875).
6/10/1779, Nathan Appleton, US politician, was born in
New Ipswich, New Hampshire (died in Boston 14/7/1861).
23/9/1779. American privateers on the Bonhomme Richard,
captained by John Paul Jones,
captured the British warship, the Serapis, after a great battle off the
English coast at Flamborough Head, Yorkshire.
1/8/1779, Francis Scott Kay, US poet who wrote The Star
Spangled Banner, which became the official
US national anthem in 1931, was born in Carroll County, Maryland.
12/4/1779. A
secret treaty was signed at Aranjuez, whereby Spain agreed to help France in
supporting the American rebels against the British. See 16/1/1780.
20/3/1779, Simon Brute, US prelate, was born (died
26/6/1839).
25/2/1779. American troops recaptured the fort at Vincennes
from the British.
5/1/1779, Stephen Decatur, US naval commander, was born
(died 22/3/1820).
29/12/1778. The British captured Savannah, the capital of
Georgia.
10/7/1778. In
support of the American rebels, France declared war on Britain. In
December 1778 Louis XIV issued a loan of 80 million livres; France ran up a large deficit supporting the American
rebels.
28/6/1778. The British were defeated by George Washington at the Battle of Monmouth,
New Jersey.
18/5/1778, Samuel Hoar, US lawyer, was born (died
2/11/1856)
6/2/1778, France recognised the independence of the United States.
23/12/1777. A plot to
overthrow General Washington
was discovered and its leader executed.
17/12/1777. Louis XIV recognised the
independence of the American colonies. On 6/2/1778 France signed a trade agreement with the
United States and entered the war against Britain. This was the result of
negotiations by Benjamin Franklin, who was effectively the permanent
American ambassador at Versailles.
17/10/1777. At the Battle
of Saratoga, American troops under General Horatio Gates defeated British
troops under John
Burgoyne, during the War of American Independence. The British Army surrendered and signed a Convention
that they were to be disarmed and sent back to Britain. This major defeat made
Britain evacuate all bases but New York and Rhode Island, and concentrate on
gaining support in the southern States. France
was encouraged by Saratoga to back the Americans, and their alliance with them
in February 1778 escalated a colonial dispute into a clash of European Empires.
7/10/1777, The Battle of Bemis Heights. A preliminary skirmish during the Saratoga Campaign in
the US War of Independence.
4/10/1777. George Washington was defeated by
the British at Germanstown. George Washington’s attack was foiled by fog,
throwing the attacking columns into confusion.
26/9/1777. British
troops launched a major offensive and captured Philadelphia.
11/9/1777, At the
Battle of Brandywine Creek, British troops under General Howe defeated American forces
under George Washington; however they
failed to follow up this success.
16/8/1777, The
Battle of Bennington, Vermont. Britain defeated by Captain Stark.
14/6/1777, The Stars and Stripes was adopted by
Congress as the flag of the USA.
12/4/1777, Henry Clay,
US politician, was born (died 29/6/1852).
3/1/1777. George Washington defeated the British under Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton, in
the War of American Independence.
1776, Tucson, Arizona, was
founded.
31/12/1776.Benjamin Franklin, arrived in
Paris to negotiate French aid for the American rebels.
26/12/1776, The Battle of Trenton. Major victory
for Washington, who took 1,000 prisoners.
16/11/1776, British forces captured Fort
Washington.
28/10/1776, Battle of
White Plains; General Howe defeated General Washington.
3/10/1776. The
American Congress borrowed 5 million dollars to halt the rapid depreciation
of paper currency, which was being printed to finance the revolution.
Fighting against the British continued.
22/9/1776, The US patriot Nathan
Hale was found hanged in New York City by the British, for being a
spy during the American Revolutionary War.
21/9/1776, The British captured Nathan Hale,
21-year old US Army Captain, who had been spying on the British in Long Island.
He also started numerous fires in New York to create confusion amongst the
British.
15/9/1776, The British under General Howe
occupied New York, and narrowly missed capturing General Washington.
9/9/1776. American Congress changed the name
of the United Colonies to the United States.
6/9/1776, The US pioneered the use of the
submarine for military purposes. David Bushnell’s Connecticut Turtle, a pear-shaped 2 metre long wooden vessel dived
under British ships in New York Harbour in an attempt to bore holes with an
augur and plant explosives, However the British ships had copper bottoms and
the attempt was futile.
27/8/1776, The
Battle of Long Island. General Howe’s army, 20,000
regular soldiers, defeated 8,000 colonials under General
Israel Putnam.
2/8/1776. Formal signing of America’s Declaration of
Independence.
4/7/1776. The American Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence
was drafted by Thomas
Jefferson between 11/6/1776 and 28/6/1776 and became America’s most cherished symbol of liberty. Its political
philosophy voiced the ideas of individual liberty and justified to the world
the breaking of ties between the old colony and Britain. The Liberty Bell was cast to signal the
Independence of the USA and was rung from the tower of Independence Hall in
Philadelphia, calling citizens to hear the first public reading of the
Declaration of Independence. The bell has cracked and is no longer rung but
remains a tourist attraction. Firework displays on 4 July symbolise the
Revolutionary war that began in 1776.
28/6/1776, The
British were repulsed at Charleston.
15/5/1776, Virginia declared independence from the British Empire and adopted George Mason's
Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was then included in a new constitution.
17/3/1776. George Washington forced British troops to
withdraw from Boston, Massachusetts.
31/12/1775, An
American attack on Quebec failed.
10/11/1775, The US Marine Corps was founded.
18/10/1775, The
British bombarded Falmouth, now called Portland, Maine.
13/10/1775, The Continental Congress established
an American Navy, ‘Two swift sailing
vessels’.
12/10/1775, Lyman Beecher,
US preacher, was born in New Haven, Connecticut (died in Brooklyn, New York,
10/1/1863).
23/8/1775, George III rejected an offer of peace,
saying the Americans were in open rebellion against the Crown.
26/6/1775, George Washington of Virginia arrived at Boston to
take command of the American Army.
17/6/1775, British troops under Lord
Howe defeated the rebel American colonists at Bunker Hill, near
Boston, but suffered heavy losses themselves. The battle was actually fought on
nearby Breeds Hill.
14/6/1775, In
the USA, the Second Continental Congress authorised the enlistment of ten
companies of citizen soldiers; the
beginning of the US Army.
12/6/1775. General Gage imposed martial law,
declared all armed colonists traitors, and offered pardons to
those who swore allegiance to the Crown.
20/5/1775. Charlotte in North Carolina was the first place to
declare Independence from Britain, the
Mecklenburg Declaration.
10/5/1775, Fort Ticonderooga was captured from the British by the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont.
9/5/1775, US soldier Jacob Brown
was born (died 24/2/1828).
19/4/1775, The Battle of Lexington, the opening engagement of
the War of American Independence took place. The British were marching to destroy a
colonist’s arms depot near Concorde, Boston but were intercepted at
Lexington. The colonists avoided a set
battle with the British but harried them, guerrilla-style, from the cover of
hills and trees. The British were forced
to retreat.
18/4/1775, Paul Revere and William
Dawes rode through the night from Charlestown to Lexington to warn
the Massachusetts colonists of the arrival of British forces at the start of
the War of American Independence.
22/3/1775. Statesman Edmund Burke urged
the House of Commons to adopt a policy of reconciliation with the Americans.
However on 13/4/1775 Lord North extended
the scope of the Restraining Act from New England to cover South Carolina,
Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. The Act forbade trade with
any other country except Britain and Ireland and was bitterly resented by the
Americans. On 14/4/1775 General Gage
was ordered to implement the Coercive Acts and halt the colonial military
build-up.
9/3/1775, Isaac Hull, US Commodore, was born (died
13/2/1843).
9/2/1775. The UK Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a
state of rebellion. On 21/2/1775
Massachusetts voted to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.
26/10/1774. A meeting of colonial leaders at Philadelphia criticised British
influence in America and affirmed the American’s right to ‘life, liberty,
and property’. Colonists began to step up their boycott of British goods,
tarred and feathered traders and burnt their homes, and began to raise
militias for a war against Britain.
10/10/1774, The Battle of
Point Pleasant. Shawnee Indians were defeated when they attacked frontiersmen
on the Ohio River..
5/9/1774, America’s first
Continental Congress was convened, at Philadelphia.
13/6/1774, Rhode
Island became the first US State to ban the importation of slaves, and to
free those already in the State.
2/6/1774. The UK Parliament reactivated the Quartering Act (passed
24/3/1765), requiring that all British colonialists provide housing for British
troops.
27/5/1774, American
community leaders met unofficially in a tavern and decided upon the need for
annual inter-colonial congresses.
20/5/1774, Because of the Boston Tea Party incident, London passed the Coercive
Acts to punish the American colonies. Boston port was closed down
and the powers of the Massachusetts legislature was reduced. The British Parliament passed the Boston Port
Act, prohibiting the use by any ships, of the port of Boston, USA. This
simply served to inflame the passions of American colonists against the British
further in cities from Pennsylvania to New York.
7/5/1774, William Bainbridge, US naval commodore, was
born in Princeton, New Jersey (died 28/7/1833).
16/12/1773. The Boston Tea
Party. See 28/10/1767, 5/3/1770 and 17/3/1776. American colonial
rebels, dressed as American Indians,
boarded three British tea ships anchored in Boston Harbour, opened 342 tea
chests worth UK£ 9,000, and threw their contents overboard. The colonists vowed
not to pay the British-imposed tax of 3 pence a pound on tea. This tax was
intended to capitalise on a ‘tea mountain’ which had built up in London and
threatened to bankrupt the East India Company. The East India Company faced
financial problems because British demand for Indian goods exceeded Indian
demand for British goods, so there was an outflow of British gold bullion,
perceived to be against British interests (mercantilism). The East India Company
failed to make money, whereas it had been hoped that the Company would be able
to contribute to British public funds. Therefore the East India Company was
given permission to export tea directly to the American colonists.
In 1765 the Stamp Act was imposed by Britain to help pay for the costs of the
Seven Years War; this was rejected by the American colonists. Repealed, this
was replaced by the Townshend Acts,
imposing duties on a range of goods including tea, lead, glass, paper and
paint. In 1770 the Townshend Acts
were in turn repealed, except for the Tea
Tax.
9/6/1772, The
British schooner Gaspee was set on
fire and destroyed by American colonists after it had run aground near
Providence, Rhode Island. The schooner had been stationed to prevent a profitable
smuggling trade in the region. A British investigation failed to find the
culprits.
17/4/1772, Archibald
Alexander, US Presbyterian clergyman, was born in Virginia (died
22/10/1851 in Princeton, New Jersey).
24/2/1772, William
Crawford, US statesman, was born (died 15/9/1834).
20/2/1772, Isaac Chauncey,
US naval commander, was born (died 27/2/1840).
22/12/1770, Demetrius
Gallatzin, US priest, was born (died 6/5/1840).
1/8/1770, William Clark,
US explorer, was born (died 1/9/1838).
27/7/1770, Robert
Dinwiddie, English colonial Governor of Virginia, died
(born 1693).
12/4/1770. The British
Parliament repealed all the taxes on the colonies imposed by Charles
Townshend except the tea tax.
5/3/1770. British troops opened fire on a crowd
in Boston, Massachusetts,
killing five. A crowd had gathered to harass a sentinel on
King (now State) street, and he called for help; the troops he called upon
fired, killing several men. This
incident, later called the Boston
Massacre, contributes to the unpopularity
of the British regime in America in the years before the American
Revolution (see 24/3/1765). Previously,
local sailors and workers had harassed British troops quartered in Boston, and
the troops were ordered to open fire. See 16/12/1773 and 17/3/1776.
28/1/1770, Lord North, Earl of Guildford, became Prime Minister in Britain. To conciliate
the American colonists he abolished all
import duties, except the one on tea. This was to establish the British right to tax Americans, see 12/4/1770.
19/1/1770. The Battle of
Golden Hill. A group on New Yorkers
called the Sons of Liberty engage British troops in pitched battle over
British demands for compliance with the Quartering Act.
2/3/1769, De Witt Clinton, US politician, was born (died
11/2/1828).
1/10/1768. Lord
Hillsborough, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent two regiments
to Boston to quell unrest caused by the Stamp Acts.
28/10/1767. Boston led a revival of the boycott of British goods. See 16/12/1773.
4/3/1766. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act which had caused bitter disputes
in the colonies, especially North America..
26/8/1765. A major riot broke out in Boston, USA against the Stamp Act. Rioters attacked the house of Thomas Hutchinson,
the lieutenant –governor, and burned the house, including the library. Thus
many irreplaceable sources of Massachusetts history were lost.
24/3/1765. Britain passed the Quartering Act (see 2/6/1774) requiring the
colonies to provide food and shelter for British soldiers and their horses. In
1765 the passage of the Stamp Act, to raise revenue for British troops
in North America (fighting the French), caused widespread riots and
protests in British colonies and the boycott of British luxury goods was
stepped up. The British Treasury had a major deficit following the wars in North
America with the Indians and the French. The Stamp Act raised
revenue by requiring stamps to be fixed to items like newspapers, pamphlets,
legal documents such as deeds and licences, and to other items such as playing
cards. William Pitt was amongst those
in Parliament opposing the Stamp Act,
warning that trade with the colonies would suffer.
25/4/1764. The lawyer James Otis denounced ‘taxation
without representation’ and called on the colonies to unite against
Britain’s new tax measures. In August 1764 Boston merchants began to boycott
luxury goods from Britain.
5/4/1764. Parliament in London passed a Sugar Act, specifically aimed at
extracting revenue from the colonies.
On 19/4/1764 London also passed the Currency Act, forbidding the
colonies from printing paper money.
23/2/1764, William Eaton, US soldier, was born (died
1/6/1811).
15/2/1764, The city of St
Louis, Missouri, was founded as a trading
post between Europeans and Amerinindians.
14/12/1763, The Paxton
Massacre. Amerindians in Pennsylvania were slaughtered by Europeans
from the town of Paxton. They then marched on Pennsylvania to massacre more Amerindians,
but were deterred by US troops.
17/7/1763, John Jacob Astor, US fur merchant and
philanthropist, was born in Walldorf, Germany (died 29/3/1848 in New York City).
29/1/1761, Albert Gallatin, US statesman, was born (died
12/8/1849).
21/6/1759, Alexander Dallas, US statesman, was born (died
16/6/1817).
20/5/1759, William Thornton, US architect who designed the Capitol at Washington, was
born.
1/5/1759, Jacob Albright, US clergyman, was born near
Pottstown, Pennsylvania (died 18/5/1808 in Muhlbach, Pennsylvania).
25/11/1758, The British
captured Fort Duquesne (later, Pittsburgh) from the French.
16/10/1758, Birth of Noah Webster, lexicographer who produced the first American dictionary.
9/4/1758, Ames Fisher, US statesman, was born in Dedham,
Massachusetts (died 4/7/1808).
11/1/1757, Alexander Hamilton, US statesman, was born
(died 12/7/1804).
16/10/1756, Noah Webster, American lexicographer who wrote
Webster’s Dictionary, was born in
West Hartford, Connecticut.
6/2/1756, Aaron Burr, US politician, was born (died
14/9/1836).
9/7/1755, General Braddock’s troops were attacked by a
joint force of French and Indians near
Fort Duquesne.
8/7/1755, Britain and
France broke off diplomatic relations as their dispute over North America
deepened.
6/6/1755, Nathan Hale, American
revolutionary who was hanged for spying on the British, was born.
11/1/1755, Alexander Hamilton, US statesman and founder of the newly independent
post-Revolution Government, was born on
Nevis, British West Indies.
10/7/1754, Benjamin Franklin called for a Union of the British
colonies in America, so as to co-ordinate defence against the French; the
so-called Albany Plan.
3/7/1754, British forces under George Washington were
defeated by the French near Fort Necessity in the Ohio Valley.
19/11/1752, George Clarke, US frontiersman, was born (died
13/2/1818).
16/12/1751, George Cabot, US politician, was born
(died18/4/1823).
20/5/1750, Stephen Girard, US financier and
philanthropist, was born (died 26/12/1831).
19/5/1749, King George II of Britain granted the Ohio Company a charter of land on the
Ohio River.
3/1/1749, Benning Wentworth issued the first of the New
Hampshire Grants, leading to the founding
of the State of Vermont.
22/2/1747, Timothy Dexter, US merchant, was born (died
26/10/1806).
12/12/1745, John Jay, US statesman, was born (died
17/5/1829).
19/4/1745, Oliver Ellsworth, US politician, was born
(died 27/11/1807).
17/7/1744, Elbridge Gerry, US statesman, was born (died
23/11/1814).
13/6/1743, Francis Dana, US jurist, was born (died
25/4/1811).
18/4/1743, James Blair, US cleric, died (born 1656).
7/8/1742, Nathanael Greene, US General, was born (died
19/6/1786).
13/5/1742, Manasseh Cutler, US statesman, was born (died
28/7/1823).
17/4/1741, Samuel Chase, US jurist, was born (died
19/6/1811).
14/1/1741, Benedict Arnold, US soldier, was born in
Norwich, Connecticut (died 14/6/1801 in London, England).
2/5/1740, Elias Boudinot, US revolutionary leader, was
born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (died in Burlington, New Jersey,
24/10/1821).
19/10/1739, The War of Jenkins Ear began. In 1738
Captain Jenkins alleged that whilst in the Caribbean his ship had been boarded
by the Spanish,
one of whom had cut off one of his ears. In October 1739 Lord Anson was
despatched with a naval squadron to wreak revenge. The real cause of the war between England and Spain was a border
dispute over Florida.
26/7/1739, George Clinton, US political leader, was born
(died 20/4/1812).
10/1/1739, Ethan Allen, US soldier, was born in
Litchfield, Connecticut (died 11 2/1789 in Burlington, Vermont).
24/12/1737, Silas Deane, US diplomat, was born (died
23/9/1789).
19/9/1737, Charles Carroll, US politician, was born (died
14/11/1832).
2/3/1737, William Heath, US soldier, was born (died
24/1/1814).
23/1/1737, John Hancock, US Revolutionary statesman, was
born (died 8/10/1793).
29/5/1736, Patrick Henry, US politician, was born (died
6/6/1799).
1/1/1735, Paul Revere, American silversmith and patriot who was famous
for his ride from Charlestown to Lexington to warn of the British advance on
Concord, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
2/11/1734, Daniel Boone, American frontiersman, was born.
8/11/1732, John Dickinson, US politician, was born (died
14/2/1808).
9/6/1732, King George II of Britain granted a Charter
for the establishment of the State of Georgia.
13/4/1732, Birth of Frederick North,
Earl of Guildford, who introduced the Tea
Act that led to the Boston Tea Party
22/2/1732, George
Washington, soldier and Federal President, was born in
Wakefield, Westmoreland County, Virginia.
30/7/1729, The city
of Baltimore, Maryland, USA, was founded.
22/12/1727, William Ellery,
US politician, was born (died 15/2/1820).
7/8/1726, James Bowdoin, US politician, was born in
Boston, Massachusetts (died in Massachusetts 11/10/1811).
27/9/1722, Birth of Samuel Adams,
American revolutionary who was involved in the Boston Tea Party. He died on 2/10/1803.
8/7/1721, Elihu Yale, American philanthropist and benefactor of Yale University, named after him in New Haven, died.
30/7/1718, William Penn, English Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania State in the USA, died aged 73.
17/5/1718, The French founded New Orleans,
Louisiana.
7/6/1712, Philadelphia banned the import of slaves.
6/4/1712 Slave revolt in New York
9/9/1711, Thomas Hutchinson, last Royal Governor of
Massachusetts, was born (died 3/6/1780).
26/3/1706, Mather Byles, US clergyman unpopular for his
pro-Royalist views, was born (died 5/7/1788).
17/1/1706. Benjamin Franklin,
American scientist,
was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the 15th of 17 children.
1702, French settlement of what is now
Alabama began. The French explorer Jean Baptiste le Moyne founded a colony just
inland, which he called Foret Loius de la Mobile, in honour of both Louis XIV of France and the
local friendly Amerindian tribe, the Mabila.
24/7/1701, Antione
Cadillac founded the French colonial settlement of Fort
Pontcahrtain, later Detroit, to
control the route between Lake Huron and Lake Erie.
1/5/1699, Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville founded the first European settlement on the
Mississippi at Fort Maurepas, now Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
14/1/1699, Massachusetts
held a day of mourning for having wrongly persecuted witches.
1/1/1698, The Abenaki tribe and the Massachusetts colonists
signed a treaty ending the conflict in New England.
10/6/1692. The first of
the Salem Witches was hanged. She
was Bridget
Bishop, one of 150 respectable citizens accused of witchcraft by a
hysterical band of young girls in the isolated Puritan town in Massachusetts.
1/3/1692, In the US, the Salem witch hunt began.
26/5/1691. James Lesler was executed for treason in New
York. He had led an uprising against the
English in favour of James II.
12/9/1687, John Adlen, one of the Pilgrim Fathers, died in Duxbury.
24/7/1684, Rene-Robert Cavelier sailed from France with a
large expedition, to establish a French colony on the Gulf of Mexico, at the
mouth of the Mississippi River.
27/10/1682, Philadelphia, USA, was founded by William Penn.
9/4/1682, The
explorer de
La Salle reached the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed it for
Louis XIV of France,
naming the area Louisiana.
8/1/1679, La Salle, French explorer, reached the Niagara
Falls.
4/3/1681, King Charles II granted the Quaker, William Penn,
38 years old, a Royal Charter for territory in North America, to be called Pennsylvania. In return Penn
waived a debt of £16,000 owed by the Crown to his estate.
27/11/1679, A major fire in Boston, Massachusetts, burnt all the warehouses, all the ships in
the dockyards, and 80 houses.
10/11/1674. All
Dutch-held areas of New York were returned to Britain under the Treaty of
Westminster. During the third Anglo-Dutch war, the Dutch had captured New
York on 9/8/1672.
13/6/1674. Philip Carteret, the governor of New Jersey,
launched a campaign to enforce the payment of quitrents; rents charged
on land initially granted free to settlers from Europe. The colony had rebelled
against this taxation. In 1673 London had enacted the Plantation Duty Act,
imposing duties on any ship carrying certain products, such as sugar, cotton,
or tobacco, between colonial ports.
17/5/1673, Jacques Marquette, a French missionary, discovered the
Mississippi River.
1/1/1673. A regular
postal service was set up between New York and Boston. The mounted service
used a special ‘post road’ along which men and horses are posted at intervals.
18/10/1667, Brooklyn
received its Town Charter under Mathias Nichols, Governor of the New Netherlands,
as ‘Brueckelen’.
23/9/1667. A law passed
in Williamsburg, America, prevented slaves from gaining their freedom by converting
to Christianity.
15/3/1665, John Endecott, British colonial Governor of
America, died.
2/2/1665. The British captured Manhattan Island from the
Dutch, almost 40 years after the Dutch bought it from the Indians for beads in
1626. The Dutch colony was ruled by Peter Stuyvesant under strict Puritanical
principles. The British renamed it ‘New York’ after King Charles II’s
brother the Duke of York. See 31/7/1667. British rule was more relaxed.
12/3/1664, New Jersey became a colony of England.
24/3/1663, King Charles II
of England granted Carolina (from Virginia down to Florida) to eight of his
courtiers, who had helped him regain the throne.
1/10/1660. The English reinforced the Navigation Act by
insisting that certain colonial goods were only to be shipped to Britain. This
was directed against the Dutch but caused resentment in the British colonies.
3/10/1658, Myles Sundish, leader of the Pilgrim Fathers,
died.
9/5/1657, Pilgrim Father William Bradford, Governor of
Plymouth County in Massachusetts, died.
3/5/1654. The first
toll bridge in America was licensed to Richard Thurley at Newbury River.
There was a charge for animals but not for people.
14/10/1651. Massachusetts passed laws forbidding the poor to wear excessively luxurious dress.
1649, Puritans fleeing religious
persecution in Virginia established the town of Annapolis. It was originally
known as Anne Arundel Town, after the wife of the second Lord Baltimore,
Governor of Maryland. It was renamed after Princess Anne of England in 1695.
5/4/1649, Death of John Winthrop, first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
26/5/1647. A new law in Massachusetts banned Catholic priests from the colony.
The penalty was banishment, or death for a second offence.
14/10/1644. The Quaker Leader William Penn, founder of the
State of Pennsylvania, was born in London, the son of an admiral.
1/11/1642, Death of Jean Nicolet (born ca. 1598), French
explorer of the Lake Michigan area (now Wisconsin).
24/1/1639,
American settlers meeting in Hartford voted to adopt a new constitution
called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. It allowed colonists to
administer their own laws and to raise taxes, and made no mention of allegiance
to the British Crown.
6/12/1637, Sir Edmond Andros, English colonial Governor
of the North American colonies, was born in London (died in London February
1714).
See also Education; 1636, Harvard University.
4/7/1636, The city of Providence, Rhode island, was founded.
4/3/1634. Samuel Cole opened the first tavern in Boston,
Massachusetts.
30/9/1630, The first death sentence in America. John Billington
was executed for murder in New Plymouth.
17/9/1630. The city of Boston, USA, officially received its
name. It was named after Boston,
Lincolnshire, from where the Puritan
leaders of the town had come.
12/6/1630, The fleet of the Massachusetts Bay Company docked at Salem, with 700 Puritan colonists on board.
4/3/1629, Massachusetts
Bay Colony was granted a Royal Charter
6/5/1626, Manhattan
Island, now part of New York, was bought by Peter Minuit, Director-General
of the Dutch West India Company, from
the local Indian tribes for goods and trinkets worth 60 Dutch Guilders (1980
US$ 24).
22/4/1625, Fort Amsterdam was on the southern tip of
Manhattan Island founded by Dutch colonists from the Dutch West India Company.
1624, Willaim Tucker became the first Black person
to be born in North America, in Jamestown, Virginia.
1623, The earliest European settlements in New Hampshire were
founded. John
Mason named the colony after his native county of Hampshire, England.
1621, The Dutch West India Company was formed. It was a group of merchants
responsible for the settlement of New Netherland, now New York. The Company was
wound up in 1674 (see 10/11/1674).
1/6/1621, The Pilgrim Fathers issued the Mayflower Compact,
organising formal rules for their governance.
21/12/1620, The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock.
9/11/1620, 67 days after leaving Plymouth, the Pilgrim
Fathers sighted land as they approached America.
6/9/1620. The 101 Pilgrim
Fathers, mostly uneducated
farmers, set sail from Plymouth on the Mayflower,
captained by Myles Standish. They arrived at Plymouth Rock, off Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, on 21/12/1620. They were fleeing religious persecution, and had
originally fled from Britain to Holland in 1608 to escape Catholic persecution by King Charles
I. They settled in Leyden where they were free to worship but did not adapt to Dutch
society, and decided to migrate to America.
29/6/1620. After earlier denouncing tobacco as a health
hazard, King
James I banned the
growing of tobacco in Britain. However he gave the Virginia Company a
monopoly of tobacco growing in exchange for a tax of one shilling per pound of
tobacco.
30/7/1619, The first
meeting of representatives in America, the House of Burgesses, met at
Jamestown, Virginia.
4/12/1619, 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish, England,
disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to God; this is considered by some to
be the first Thanksgiving in the
Americas.
28/7/1615, Samuel de
Champlain discovered Lake Huron.
12/9/1609, Henry Hudson sailed his ship, Half Moon,
from New York up-river to Albany, along the river named after him.
25/3/1609. English navigator Henry Hudson,
commissioned by Dutch East India Company, set off on his third and final
attempt to find the North West Passage to the Spice Islands of the East.
13/5/1607. Captain John Smith landed on the Virginia
coast with 103 cavaliers in three ships and founded the first permanent
English settlement in the New World, Jamestown. See 19/12/1606.
19/12/1606, Colonists set out from England for Virginia.
28/1/1596. Sir Francis Drake
died of dysentery and was buried at sea off Porto Bello, Panama.
17/8/1590, John White, Governor of Roanoke Island, returned to
find the British colony deserted and the first European child born in America
vanished. The
word ‘Croatoan’ was left behind.
18/8/1587. Virginia Dare became the first child born of
English parents in America. She was born on Roanoke Island, North Carolina,
seven days after Sir Walter Raleigh’s
second expedition landed. The parents were called Ananias and Ellinor Dare,
and named the child Virginia in honour of the virgin Queen of England and the
fledgling colony.
11/6/1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed from Plymouth,
with the approval of Queen Elizabeth I, to found a British colony in America.
26/9/1580. Sir Francis Drake
arrived back in Plymouth in the 100 ton Golden Hind (originally The
Pelican) after 33 months, the first
Englishman to circumnavigate the world. See 13/12/1577 and 4/4/1581.
17/6/1579. Sir Francis Drake
anchored the Golden Hind just north of what was to become San Francisco Bay; he
named the area New Albion, claiming it for Britain.
13/12/1577. Sir Francis Drake
left Plymouth on his voyage round the
world. See 26/9/1580.
28/8/1565, The Spanish established the settlement of St
Augustine, Florida.
27/5/1562, Jean Ribaut, leading an expedition to found a
Huguenot colony in New France, founded Port Royal, South Carolina, USA.
21/5/1542, Hernando de Soto, the first European to cross the Mississippi, died on the return
journey.
8/5/1541, The River Mississippi was first seen by Europeans. The Spanish
Conquistador, Hernando
de Soto, reached the River in the area where Arkansas City is now
sited.
1540, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, a
Spanish captain, became the first
European to see the Grand Canyon. Spanish explorer Hernando de Alarcon discovered
the Colorado River.
8/7/1524, Verrazzano's expedition returned to Dieppe.
17/4/1524, Verrazzano's expedition made the first
European entry into New York Bay and
sighted the island of Manhattan
22/2/1512. The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who gave
America his name, died in Seville.
25/4/1507, The name ‘America’ was first used on a map, by German
cartographer Martin
Waldseemuller, in honour of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
See South-Central
America 1490s for Columbus, exploration of Caribbean
9/3/1454, Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer who
discovered the mouth of the Amazon and gave his name to America, was born.
Appendix 1 – Amerindian nations (see also Alaska,
Florida)
30/6/1980, In the US, the Sioux nation won US$ 122.5 million in
compensation and interest for illegal government seizure of their land in 1871.
1924, The US now allowed
indigenous Indians to become full citizens. Indigenous Indian, Learned Hand,
became the first Native American judge of the US Court of Appeals, serving
until 1956.
1923,
The Navajos set uo a Tribal Council, intitally to approve an oil and gas lease.
17/2/1909. Geronimo, the last Apache chief
to surrender, died at his ranch on an Oklahoma reservation, aged 90.
29/1/1907, Charles Curtis became U.S.
Senator for Kansas, the first Indigenous American to become a Senator.
29/12/1890. The Battle of Wounded Knee
in South Dakota. This was the last major conflict between Red Indians, the
Sioux, and US troops.
15/12/1890. Chief Sitting Bull, Sioux leader
(born ca.1831), was shot dead in a scuffle with police in South Dakota whilst
resisting arrest. He had fled to Canada after his victory over General Custer
at Little Bighorn in 1876. He returned to the USA in 1881 and was jailed for 2
years. He performed for several years with Buffalo Bill’s travelling Wild West Show, but
the suffering of his people led him to join the new Ghost Dance Movement,
dedicated to destroying the Whites and restoring the lost Indian world. The US
Government sent troops to suppress the Ghost Dance Movement and arrest its
leaders; Sitting
Bull was shot in the skirmish.
2/5/1890. The Federal Territory of Oklahoma was created; it was formerly known as
the Indian Territory. On 22/4/1889
the US government, via a single shot fired at noon, had signalled the start of a
great race for land by white settlers. An estimated 200,000 people crossed into
the land once home to 75,000 Indians, who had to move on. By nightfall
22/4/1889 almost all of Oklahoma’s 2 million acres had been claimed.
8/2/1887. The USA passed the Dawes Act. This granted US citizenship
to Amerindians living outside the reservations, but also allowed the President
to overrule Indian governments and sell traditional communally-owned tribal
lands to private owners.
4/9/1886. The Apache chief Geronimo
surrendered to General
Nelson Miles of the US army. He was born in what is now New Mexico
in 1829. After returning home to find
his wife and three children murdered by Spanish troops from Mexico he
terrorized European settlements. He was the leader of the last American Indian
force to surrender, and had outwitted the US army with its superior numbers for
10 years. His ten years of guerrilla action was intended to deter white
settlers from New Mexico and Arizona. He died a prisoner in 1909, unable to
return to his homeland, and was buried in the Apache cemetery at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma.
10/4/1883, On the instructions of the
US Secretary for the Interior (Henry M Teller), the Commissioner for Indian
Affairs distributed instructions to eradicate ‘demoralising and barbarous’
traditions. The document defined ‘Indian Offenses’ that included having more
than one wife, holding religious feasts and dances such as the Sun Dance, and
practising traditional medicine. Other native traditions such as purchasing a
wife by leaving property at her father’s house and showing grief by destroying
property were also outlawed.
11/1877, General
Carleton ordered Apache Indians in Arizona off their Chiricahua
Reservation at Warm Springs and on to San Carlos. Here, summer temperatures
reached 40 C, and there was no game or other food. Any Indian found leaving San
Carlos would be shot.
4/10/1877, The Amerindian leader of
the Nez Pierce tribe, Chief Joseph, surrendered tp the US Army. His
people were cold and exhausted after a long march from the tribe’s lands in
Oregon after gold was discovered on their lands. Joseph and his people were sent
to live on the non Nez Pierce reservation of Colville, eastern Washington,
where Joseph died in 1904.
15/9/1877, Crazy Horse, Sioux Chief, one of the leaders at the victory
of Little Big Horn in 1876, died.
6/5/1877. Chief Crazy Horse and his Sioux Indians gave themselves up to US troops,
abandoning claims to Nebraska.
25/6/1876. Custer’s Last Stand took place at
Little Bighorn, Montana. Custer died with all 264 men of his 7th cavalry. The
killing was done by Sioux Indians led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall. The Battle was the result
of a confused policy by the US government towards the Indians. The Indians,
Eastern Sioux, and Northern Cheyennes, had been guaranteed exclusive possession
of the Dakota territory west of the Missouri River, but white miners were
settling in the Black Hills area searching for gold. The US government refused
to move the miners and so conflict became inevitable. The Indians were asked to
leave or be considered hostile and in June 1876 US soldiers moved in. However
Custer, with his 650 men, was unaware that the Indians had 1,500 warriors close
by. After the disaster of Little Bighorn, the US army flooded the area with
soldiers, forcing the Indians to surrender.
31/1/1876, All American Indians were
ordered to move to reservations.
2/7/1874, The US Government ordered General George
A Custer to lead a reconnaissance
expedition into the Black Hills territory of the Sioux
Indians.
9/6/1874, Cochise, Apache chief and war
leader against White settlers, died.
3/3/1871, US Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act. Many
Amerindians had already ceded their lands by treaty and then been moved to
reservations. However this Act now made all tribes wards of the US Government
and voided all previous treaties recognising each tribe’s reservation status as
a separate nation.
27/11/1868, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and his 7th cavalry attacked the village of
Cheyenne Indian chief Black Kettle. The Indians had been resisting the building
of a railway in their territory.
6/11/1868. Oglala Sioux Indians, led
by Chief Red
Cloud, signed a peace treaty with General William Sherman, representing
the US Government, at Fort Laramie. This ended 2 years of fighting between
Indians and gold miners.
12/8/1868, Under duress, Navajo
Chiefs signed a Treaty with the US Government agreeing to live on a 3.5 million
reservation which was only a small portion of the former Navajo domain. The
reservation later grew to 14.5 million acres, but was mostly desert and
semi-desert, with just 68,000 acres of farmland. Meanwhile during a 5-year
period of Navajo internment their population had fallen from 10,000 to 8,000
and of their former 200,000 sheep, just 940 were left.
21/5/1867, Frances Theresa Densmore was
born in Red Wing, Minnesota. She recorded and documented the songs and music of
over 30 Amerindian tribes before her death at age 87.
29/11/1864, The Sand Creek massacre;
Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians were waiting to surrender to US forces when
soldiers under the command of Colonel Chivington slaughtered them.
3/3/1863. Congress provided for the
forcible removal of all Indians from the state of Kansas.
17/8/1862, A Sioux uprising in
Minnesota led by Little Crow was suppressed.
30/4/1860, Fort Defiance, New Mexico, was attacked by 1,000 Navajo Indians, angered by the shooting
of their sheep and goats by the fort’s soldiers. The Navajo, with bows and
arrows, almost succeeded in capturing the fort. |However they retreated when the
fort fired cannon on them.
1858,
Only about 150 Seminole Indians remained in the remoter areas of Florida after
a war on them (Second
Seminole War) by Federal soldiers. Between 1835 and 1842, some 3,000
soldiers were killed, and only some 300 Seminoles escaped death or deportation.
The Army returned again in 1855 in the Third Seminole War.
11/9/1858, The Mountain Meadows
Massacre in Utah. 135 migrants on the Fancher wagon train were ambushed, and
nearly all killed, by Pahute Indians; however the Indians were acting under
instructions from the Mormon leader, Brigham Young.
23/7/1851, Sioux
Chieftains ceded all their land in Iowa, as well as some in Minnesota, to the
US Government.
27/11/1847, Cayeuse Amerindians killed
14 White settlers in the Oregon area, whom they blamed for the measles epidemic
that had killed many of the Cayeuse.
5/12/1839, Birth of George
Armstrong Custer, US cavalry commander famous for ‘Custer’s Last Stand’ against the
Cheyenne and Sioux Indians.
1838,
Indian title to the lands of Minnesota was extinguished by the US Government.
23/5/1838, General Winfield-Scott ordered
the forced removal of the Cherokee Indians from their original lands into
reservations 800 miles west in what is now Oklahoma. About 4,000 of the 14,000
Cherokees died along the ‘Trail of
Tears’.
25/12/1837, Seminole Indians were defeated at US
forces under 53-year-old Colonel Zachary
Taylor. Meanwhile Seminole leader Osceola was tricked into
emerging from hiding to sign a truce, and arrested amnd taken to Fort Moultrie,
South Carolina, where he died in 1838. Most of the Seminole in Florida were
killed over the next few years. See 1858.
1835,
A Second
Seminole War
(see 1819) began after a 31-year-old Seminole man killed a chief who had signed
the 1832 Treaty, also a US agent at Fort King. A 2-year guerrilla war now began
against US forces led by General Thomas S Jesup
29/12/1835, The Treaty of New Echota
was signed between the US Government and the Amerindian Cherokee Nation, after
which the Cherokees were moved to the Oklahoma Territory along the ‘Trail of
Tears’.
28/12/1835. Over 100 US troops were
killed by Seminole
Indians resisting attempts to drive them out of Florida.
28/10/1834, Florida Seminole Indians
were ordered to move to an Indian Territory set up west of the Mississippi (see
9/5/1832).
30/6/1834, US Congress set up a
Department of Indian Affairs.
14/10/1832, The Chicasaw Indians ceded
their land east of the Mississippi to the United States.
21/9/1832, The Sauk and Fox
Amerindian tribes agreed to remain west of the Mississippi.
2/8/1832, Illinois militiamen
massacred Indian warriors at Bad Axe River in Wisconsi Territory, during the
Black Hawk War.
9/5/1832, Seminole Indians in
Florida ceded their land to the United States and agreed to move west of the
Mississippi. See 28/10/1834.
24/3/1832, The Creek Indians ceded
all their land east of the Mississippi to the United States.
3/3/1832, The US Supreme Court
ruled, in the case of Worcester v. Georgia, that the US Government had
exclusive authority over tribal Indians and their lands in any State.
27/5/1831, Comanche Indians on the
Cimarron killed Jeremiah
Smith.
18/3/1831, The US Supreme Court ruled
that indigenous Amerindian tribes could not sue for their rights in a Federal
Court ‘because they weren’t full citizens,
and their reservations weren’t foreign nations’.
15/9/1830. The Choctaw Indians ceded
their lands east of the Mississippi River.
28/5/1830. The USA passed the Indian Removal Act, giving the Indians
perpetual title to western lands. The Indians were wary, aware of valuable
mineral deposits beneath these western lands.
20/12/1828. Cherokee Indians ceded
their traditional lands in Arkansas territory to the USA and agreed to migrate
to lands west of the Mississippi River.
11/3/1824, The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created by US Secretary of War, John C
Calhoun.
14/10/1823, Chicksaw Indian tribal
chiefs ceded land east of the Mississippi River to the United States
Government.
1819,
First Seminole
War; The US army under Major General Andrew Jackson, having taken
Florida from Spain, now set about evicting the local Seminole Indians from the
best farmland. The four thousand Seminoles refused to move, and the First Seminole War
lasted until 1826. See 1835.
29/9/1817, Under the Fort Meigs Treaty, 6,000 square miles
of land previously belonging to the Ohio Indians was ceded to the US
Government. In return the Indians received 144 square miles, the ‘Grand
Reserve, on the Upper Sandusky.
9/8/1814. By the Treaty of Fort Jackson the Creek
Indians ceded their claims to about half of present day Alabama, and by a
further series of treaties in 1830 and 1835 the Indians were transferred
further west.
22/7/1814. Five Indian tribes in Ohio
made peace with the USA and declared war on the British.
9/11/1813, In the USA, General Andrew
Jackson defeated Cree Indians at Taledega in a retaliatory attack following a
Cree attack in August 1813 in which 500 White settlers were massacred.
7/11/1811, The Battle of Tippecanoe. The Shawnee Indians were heavily defeated
by US General Harrison.
30/9/1809, The Treaty of Fort Wayne was signed by Governor Harrison and Chiefs of
the Delaware, Miami and Potawatomi Indian tribes, ceding 5,500 square miles of
territory to the Federal Government. Two tribal leaders, Tecumseh and Tensquatawa,
refused to sign.
24/11/1807, Joseph Brant, American Indian
chief of the Mohawks, died (born 1742).
8/3/1782, The Gnadenhutten Massacre in Delaware. 160 volunteers under Colonel David
Williamson attacked the Moravian mission town of Gnadenhutten. 90
Christian indigenous American Indian men women and children were slaughtered,
and the mission church burnt down. A few survivors managed to flee to Canada.
7/8/1790, Alexander McGillivray, chief of
the Muskogian Indians, signed a
treaty of peace and friendship with President Washington.
26/11/1789. Thanksgiving was celebrated across America for the first time. In 1621 the indigenous
Americans had taught early Plymouth settlers how to tap the maple trees for sap
and how to plant the Indian corn. The harvest was very successful and
the Pilgrims found they had enough food to see them through the winter. The
Pilgrim Governor William Bradford proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving to be shared
by all colonists and invited the Indians to join them for three days. During
the American Revolution of the late 1770s, a Day of National Thanksgiving was
suggested by the Continental Congress and was celebrated nationwide in 1789.
Since then each President has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually
designating the fourth Thursday in November as the holiday.
20/4/1777, The Cherokee Nation ceded
all their land in South Carolina to the US federal government by the De Witts Corner Treaty.
20/4/1769, Pontiac, indigenous American
leader, died.
5/11/1768. William Johnson, the Northern
Indian Commissioner, signed a treaty with the Iriquois Indians to acquire much
of the land between the Tennessee and Ohio rivers for future settlement.
15/2/1764, The city of St Louis, Missouri, was founded as a trading post between Europeans and Indians.
7/5/1763. Four Indian tribes united
to lay siege to the British stronghold of Fort Detroit. However the British had
forewarning of the plan by the Delaware, Chippawa, Shawnee, and Ottawa tribes
and had strengthened their fortifications. The Indians were concerned at the
loss of their fur trade to the British, and wanted a return to the old Indian
customs. In November 1763 the Indians lifted the siege after failing to gain
French support.
28/11/1729, In Louisiana,
Natchez Indians massacred over 200 White settlers after the colonists tried to
appropriate the Indians traditional burial grounds.
23/6/1683, William Penn signed a treaty of
peace and friendship with chiefs of the Lenapi Indian tribe, at Shakamaxon.
1680,
Revolt by the Arizona Amerindians against the Spanish.
29/5/1677, The Treaty of Middle Plantation established peace between the Virginia
colonists and the local Indians.
12/8/1676, King Philip, American Indian
Chief, was killed. The Indian War in New England ended.
1659,
Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, was bought from the American Indians by Thomas Macy
for £30 and two beaver hats.
26/5/1637, The English massacred
women and children of the Pequot Indians, in revenge for the murder of a slave
trader, John
Oldham, in July 1636. The Pequot men were away from their villages,
tending the fields, so the English massacre was a very one-sided affair. Other
Amerindian tribes were either enemies of the Pequot, or intimidated into not
assisting them, and a guerrilla war by the Pequot finally ended when these
other tribes captured and killed the Pequot leader, Sassacus.
13/12/1636, The Massachusetts Bay
Colony organised three militia regiments to defend against the Pequot
Indians. This was the founding of the United States National Guard.
22/3/1622, The Jamestown Massacre.
Algonquin Indians killed 347 English settlers outside Jamestown,
Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, and burnt the Henricus
settlement.
21/3/1617, Algonquin Indian princess Pocohontas,
born ca.1595,died.
5/4/1614. An Indian Princess, Pocahontas,
was married to John
Rolfe, a Jamestown settler, in an effort to bring peace to the
settlement between the Powhatan Indians and the British.
1598,
The Spanish led by Don Juan de Onate marched into what is now
Arizona from Zapateca in Mexico, bringing thousands of sheep, cattle and
goats, They subjugated the local Amerindians into acting as herders, looking
after these animals.
1513,
The Spanish
landed in Florida under Ponce de Leon.
They were unable to subjugate the local Amerindians, whom they termed cimarrones, or ‘wild ones’. They are now
known as the Seminole.
1397, Physician and mapmaker Paolo
Toscanelli was born in Florence, Italy.
It was his incorrect map, showing Asia just 3,000 miles west of Europe, that
persuaded Columbus
to sail west from Europe.
2,000 BCE, Squashes, maize and beans were being cultivated across the south west
of the present-dasy USA. Long distance
trade routes were now established.
7,500 BCE, Earliest known cemetery in North America; the Sloan burial site.
11,500 BCE, Earliest date associated with the Clovis Culture of North America.
36,000 BCE, First humans reached North America,, across the Bering Strait.
Appendix 2 – Hawaii
23/11/1993, US President Bill Clinton
apologised to the indigenous Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Kingdom of
Hawaii in the 19th century.
21/8/1959. Hawaii became the 50th
State of the USA.
7/12/1941. Japanese attack on the USA fleet in
Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Pearl Harbour was taken entirely by surprise and within 2
hours 360 Japanese warplanes had destroyed 5 battleships, 14 smaller craft, and
200 aircraft. 2,400 people, many of them civilians, were killed. However the
Japanese failed to find and destroy America’s all-important aircraft carriers,
both of which were away on manoeuvres. The Japanese force then turned west to
strike the British in the East Indies, Australia, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The
US Congress met to declare war in emergency session on 8/12/1941,
much to the relief of
Britain.
9/6/1926, Sanford Ballard Dole,
Hawaiian statesman (born 23/4/1844 in Honolulu) died in Honolulu.
11/11/1917, Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii,
died.
14/11/1909. The US President, William Taft,
announced that a naval base would be built on Hawaii at Pearl Harbour to protect the
US from attack from Japan.
12/8/1898.
The sovereignty of Hawaii was
transferred to the USA.
7/7/1898,
The USA formally annexed Hawaii.
17/1/1893. US troops landed on
Hawaii and annexed it to the USA. The annexation was generally peaceful.
The US was concerned about the rise of Japan as a world power, the need for the
US to have a Pacific base, the anti-US attitude of the Hawaiian Queen, and
demands from Hawaiian sugar growers to sell inside the US tariff area.
20/1/1891, King David Kalalahua of Hawaii
died, aged 54, and was succeeded by his 52-year sister, Queen Lydia Liliuokalani. White
settlers who now owned 80% of the land in Hawaii, formed a Hawaiian League to
oppose the accession of Queen Liliuokalani, and sought annexation to
the USA.
20/1/1887.
A renewal of the reciprocity agreement between the USA and Hawaii contained
an amendment giving the USA exclusive rights to a coaling station in Pearl
Harbour.
18/3/1875. Hawaii signed a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the
islands to the USA.
1848,
King
Kamehameha III seized most Hawaiian land from the indigenous
inhabitants. He kept 24% for himself, a further 36% was ‘government land’, and
39% went to his chiefs. This left just 1% of the land for the ordinary people.
1845,
The political capital of Hawaii was moved from Maui to Honolulu.
1825,
Accession of King
Kamehameha III.
14/7/1824, Kamehameha II, King of
Hawaii and his wife died of measles during a visit to Britain.
8/5/1819, Death
of King
Kamehameha, who united Hawaii, aged 82. He was succeeded by his
22-year old son, Kamehameha II, who welcomed Christian missionaries and allowed
the indigenous culture to be undermined.
1778, Captain James Cook discovered Hawaii.
Ca. 450 CE, The Hawaiian Islands were discovered by Chief Hawaii
Loa, who had sailed from Tahiti.
Appendix 3
– US Presidents born, nominated, elected, died.
46th Presidsent, Joe Biden,
2021-20--,
Party = Democrat
45th President, Donald Trump,
2017-2021,
Party = Republican
3/11/2020, US
Presidential elections; victory by the Democrat candidate, Joe Biden, against Republican Donald Trump,
announced on 7/11/2020, after the count finally gave Biden, 46th
President, over 270 in the State tally. Turnout was very high, amidst a
Covid-19 pandemic. Biden had urged his supporters to vote by post
(Trump urged his to vote in person) and counting the large number of postal
votes, in a close and high-turnout election, took several days.
30/11/2018, George HW Bush,
41st President of the USA, died aged 94.
20/1/2017, President Trump
was inaugurated as 45th President of the USA.