History timeline

By thuongdang91

  • 1800

    1800 - June. The U. S. capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
    December 3. Electors meet in their states and cast votes for the next president of the United States. A tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr does not become known till the end of the month. This throws the election into the House of Representatives which addresses the matter on February 11, 1801.

  • 1801

    February 11. The electors' votes for president are officially opened and counted in Congress, which already knows that the vote is tied between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives meets separately and continues balloting for six days. On February 17, on the thirty-sixth ballot, Jefferson is elected president and Aaron Burr becomes vice president.
    • New York passes Emancipation Act
    • Population 5.3 million (1 million of African decent)

  • 1802

    Ohio outlaws slavery -- September. James Callender makes the accusation that Thomas Jefferson has "for many years past kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves," Sally Hemings. It is published in the Richmond Recorder that month, and the story is soon picked up by Federalist presses around the country. Callender, a Republican, has previously been an avid investigator of Federalist scandals. In 1798, Jefferson had helped pay for the publication of Callender's pamphlet The Prospect Before U

  • 1803

    Louisiana Purchase January 18. Jefferson asks Congress for funds for an expedition to explore the Mississippi River and beyond in search of a route to the Pacific. Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's private secretary, begins planning the expedition, which forms late in 1803.

  • 1804

    • May. The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departs, moving up the Missouri River. (Lewis and Clark map, with annotations... Geography and Map Division)
    • July 12. Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot the previous day by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey.
    • November. Jefferson is re-elected president. He receives the votes of all state electors except those of Connecticut, Delaware, and two from Maryland. George Clinton is his vice president.

  • 1806

    April 19. Jefferson nominates James Monroe and William Pinckney as joint commissioners to Great Britain. British warships have been boarding and searching American ships and seizing American as well as British seamen, claiming that they are British deserters. Jefferson hopes to resolve the issue and maintain American neutrality in the conflict between Great Britain and France.

  • 1807

    January 17. Aaron Burr is captured near New Orleans. He escapes but is recaptured and imprisoned. In April, Burr is charged with treason and tried in Richmond in a federal circuit court presided over by John Marshall.* Burr is acquitted. Later, with other charges pending, Burr escapes to England. (*Winfield Scott, then a young lawyer, attends the trial as a spectator.)

  • 1808

    November - James Madison is elected President – tensions continue to build with Britain. As Jefferson's successor, Madison won the 1808 presidential election handily, despite a challenge from his estranged friend, James Monroe. Throughout his first term Madison was preoccupied by disputes with France, Great Britain, and Spain. By 1810 France had repealed its commercial restrictions, at least nominally, and in the same year Madison seized the province of West Florida from Spain, thereby consolida

  • 1812

    • War of 1812 with Britain (15% sailors Black)

  • 1814

    British burn Capitol building in Washington

  • 1815

    Napoleon finally, finally defeated at Waterloo

  • 1818

    Georgia prohibits Manumission -- Karl Marx born in Germany

  • 1819

    Alabama admitted as slave state, bringing the number of slave states and free states to equal numbers.

  • 1820

    Missouri Compromise, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Maine immediately gives right to vote and education to all male citizens. The compromise also prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30'N lat. (southern boundary of Missouri). The 36°30' proviso held until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise. See map.

  • 1821

    New York gives free Blacks the right to vote

  • 1824

    Mexico becomes a republic – outlaws slavery

  • 1825

    Erie Canal completed – major transportation achievement which made New York and New York City ascend commercially.

  • 1826

    • July 4. Jefferson dies shortly after 12 noon, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is eighty-three years old. Several hours later John Adams, aged 90, dies in Massachusetts, and the nation is struck by this remarkable coincidence. The last letter Jefferson wrote to Adams was on March 23 requesting that Adams see his grandson, which Adams did

  • 1826

    • July 4. Jefferson dies shortly after 12 noon, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is eighty-three years old. Several hours later John Adams, aged 90, dies in Massachusetts, and the nation is struck by this remarkable coincidence. The last letter Jefferson wrote to Adams was on March 23 requesting that Adams see his grandson, which Adams did

  • 1827

    Slavery illegal in New York

  • 1828

    Election of Andrew Jackson

  • 1829

    Georgia prohibits the Education of Slaves

  • 1830

    “Underground Railroad” established

  • 1831

    Nat Turner, a Baptist slave preacher, leads a revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, killing at least 57 whites. Alabama makes it illegal for Blacks to preach

  • 1832

    Oberlin College founded in Ohio (admitted blacks; by 1860 1/3 of students were black) Andrew Jackson vetoes charter for 2nd U.S. Bank and reelected President

  • 1852

    • Uncle Tom’s Cabin published - Jossiah Priest publishes Bible defense of slavery
      Franklin Pierce elected president; Napoleon III's Second Empire established in France; California encourages Chinese to immigrate and work on railroads

  • 1853

    • America and Mexico sign Gadsden Treaty; Vice President William King dies; Arctic explorer Elisha Kane ventures farther north than any man has before

  • 1854

    Franklin Pierce re-elected President

  • 1855

    Free Soilers establish government banning slavery and blacks from Kansas; David Livingstone discovers Victoria Falls; Walt Whitman publishes "Leaves of Grass."

  • 1856

    Henry Bessemer invents process that allows mass production of steel; adventurer William Walker conquers Nicaragua; five slavery supporters are killed in a Kansas raid led by John Brown.

  • 1857

    Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision, Dred Scott 1857 slavery case
    newspaper editorials on case
    - thousands of businesses fail after the collapse of Ohio Life Insurance and Trust; 600 people drown when the S.S. Central America sinks off Charleston; Garibaldi establishes association to unify Italy.

  • 1858-1859

    1858 - 1859 - Theodore Roosevelt AND KAISER WILHELM BORN
    • Lincoln – Douglas debates in Senate Race, Douglas elected.

  • 1861

    civil war
    - April 12 - Fort Sumter fired on, surrenders
    • April 17 – Virginia Secedes
    • May – the remaining four of the eleven Confederate states secede.
    • July 21 – Union loses First Battle of Bull Run

  • 1862

    Morrill Act - Public lands set aside for State Colleges
    • August – Union loses Second Battle of Bull Run
    • December – Union loses Battle of Fredericksburg and over 12,600 men, South loses about 5,300.
    • Slavery is abolished in the District of Columbia

  • 1863

    March – Conscription enacted
    • Union defeat at Chancellorville: Union loses 17,000, South 13,000
    • July - Battle of Gettysburg – Major Union victory – defensive battle - Draft/race Riots in New York City

  • 1864

    Sherman marches through Georgia, Lincoln re-elected
    • April 9 – Lee Surrenders
    14 – Lincoln shot, dies next day.
    • May – Remaining Confederate armies surrender. END OF CIVIL WAR

  • 1865 – 1866

    • “Presidential Reconstruction”

  • 1867

    Radical” Congressional Reconstruction

  • 1868

    President Johnson impeached, acquitted.
    • Grant elected President
    • Southern states readmitted to Union
    • New England Woman’s Club founded

  • 1870

    15th Amendment Ratified, giving Blacks but not women the right to vote.

  • 1871

    KKK members tried and convicted by federal courts in Mississippi. Grant suspends habeas corpus and declared martial law in 9 So. Carolina counties. Many Blacks elected to political office.

  • 1873

    43rd Congress has seven Black members

  • 1875

    “Jim Crow” laws enacted in Tennessee
    • Federal troops sent to Vicksburg to protect Blacks
    • Civil Rights Act passed
    • 44th Congress has eight Black members

  • 1876

    • DISPUTED ELECTION – DEAL MADE TO WITHDRAW TROOPS FROM SOUTH.

  • 1877

    45th Congress has three Black members.

  • 1879

    46th Congress has one Black member

  • 1890

    December, Battle of Wounded Knee – 200 Native American women and children massacred by U.S. troops. Wounde Knee

  • 1899

    SOUTHERN STATES PASS LAWS TO DISENFRANCISE BLACKS

  • 1899

    SOUTHERN STATES PASS LAWS TO DISENFRANCISE BLACKS

  • 1900

    THEODORE ROOSEVELT ELECTED VICE PRESIDENT

  • 1901

    MCKINLEY ASSONATED – TR BECOMES PRESIDENT
    • CARNEGIE SELLS COMPANY FOR $225 MIL

  • 1901

    MCKINLEY ASSONATED – THEODORE ROOSEVELT BECOMES PRESIDENT
    • CARNEGIE SELLS CARNEGIE STEEL COMPANY FOR $225 MIL

  • 1903

    WRIGHT BROTHERS FIRST FLIGHT

  • 1903

    WRIGHT BROTHERS FIRST FLIGHT

  • 1906

    SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE

  • 1908

    FORD INTRODUCES MODEL T
    • TAFT ELECTED PRESIDENT
    • TR GOES ON SAFARI AND EUROPE TOUR, VISITS KAISER
    • NAACP FOUNDED

  • 1912

    TR RUNS AS PROGRESSIVE… WILSON WINS
    • MORE THAN 1000 AFRICAN AMERICANS LYNCHED SINCE 1901

  • 1914

    WORLD WAR I BEGINS IN EUROPE

  • 1918

    WORLD WAR I ENDS

  • 1919

    TR DIES – CARNEGIE DIES

  • 1919

    TREATY OF VERSAILLES, 19TH AMENDMENT
    • HITLER SENTENCED TO JAIL, BEGINS MEIN KAMPF.

  • 1923

    GERMAN MONEY HYPER INFLATES
    • HITLER’S BEER HALL COUP ATTEMPT

  • 1925

    HINDENBURG ELECTED PRESIDENT OF GERMANY

  • 1929

    STOCK MARKET CRASHES, DEPRESSION BEGINS

  • 1930

    HITLER’S NAZI PARTY GAINS MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT

  • 1931

    • GEORGE’S DAD GRADUATES FROM COLLEGE / HITLER BEGINS TO TAKE POWER IN GERMANY
      • WORST OF DEPRESSION ALMOST 25% UNEMPLOYED

  • 1932

    FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT ELECTED PRESIDENT
    • COMMUNIST PARTY MAKES GAINS IN germany

  • 1933

    FDR INAUGURATED “100 DAYS”
    • HINDENBURG APPOINTS HITLER CHANCELLOR

  • 1934

    HINDENBURG DIES, HITLER APPOINTS HIMSELF PRESIDENT - “ FUEHRER”

  • 1936

    FDR RE-ELECTED
    • GERMANY AND ITALY SIGN “AXIS” TREATY

  • 1937

    German airship HINDENBURG BURNS IN NEW JERSEY

  • 1938

    MUNICH” – British P.M. Chamberlain agrees that Hitler can have Czechoslovakia.

  • 1939

    (SEPTEMBER) WORLD WAR II STARTS IN EUROPE with German Invasion of Poland. In just five weeks Poland surrenders to Germany

  • 1940

    (May) Germany invades Holland, Belgium and France – Churchill becomes P.M.
    • (May 30) British evacuate Continent at Dunkirk
    • (June) France Surrenders

  • 1941

    • (June) Germany invades Russia
    • (DECEMBER) JAPANESE ATTACK PEARL HARBOR – U.S. DECLARES WAR ON JAPAN
    • HITLER DECLARES WAR ON U.S.

  • 1942

    (January) – Germans begin retreat from Moscow area
    • (May) 1000 British planes bomb Cologne, Germany
    • (May) U.S. surrenders Philippines to Japan
    • (June) Battle of Midway, Japanese Fleet turned back with heavy losses.
    • (August) American Marines land on Guadalcanal beginning “island hopping” assault against Japan.
    • (September) Battle of Stalingrad begins
    • (November) Americans invade North Africa

  • 1943

    (January) Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Casablanca, North Africa
    • U.S. continues island offensive against Japan
    • (February) Germans surrender in Stalingrad, huge loss.
    • (July) Allies land in Sicily
    • British bomb Hamburg, creating firestorm, killing over 100,000
    • (September) Italy surrenders
    • (November) FDR, Churchill and Stalin meet at Teheran, Iran

  • 1944

    (January) Soviet troops now in Poland – Allies land in Italy at Anzio
    • (June 6) Allies invade Europe – D-Day
    • (October) MacArthur’s troops land in Philippines

  • 1945

    (February) Dresden bombed
    • (March) Japanese still fighting in Philippines.
    • (April) U.S. troops land on Okinawa (near Japan)
    • FDR Dies
    • (May) Germany Surrenders
    • (June) U.N. Charter Signed
    • (August) Atomic bombs dropped – Russia declares war on Japan
    • Japan surrenders
    • (November) War Crimes Trials begin in Germany.

  • 1946

    U.S. troops in Korea, replacing Japanese
    • U.S. grants independence to Philippines (leases bases to U.S.)
    • Communist controlled government in East Germany

  • 1947

    Britain Nationalizes Coal, radio, electrical
    • Marshall plan to aid Germany and Europe (originally offered to all of Europe, including USSR occupied.
    • Loyalty oaths for Govt. Workers
    • Jackie Robinson becomes first African American major league baseball player

  • 1948

    Peacetime draft
    • Truman defeats Dewey and is re-elected.
    • Berlin Airlift
    • Communist Parties gain control of rest of Soviet occupied Europe

  • 1949

    NATO established
    • U.N. headquarters sited in New York.
    • U.S. supported Greek government defeats Communists in civil war.
    • South Africa prohibits interracial marriages
    • Communist Chinese drive Nationalists to Taiwan, securing control of Mainland China.
    • USSR develops Atomic Bomb

  • 1950

    U.S. recognizes Vietnam
    • McCarthy Hearings begin
    • Communists in U.S. must register
    • U.S. bars trade with Communist China
    • Korean war starts, North Invades South – UN intervenes (USSR absent from Security Council)

  • 1951

    22nd Amendment, prohibiting more than two presidential terms
    • Rosenburgs found guilty, sentenced to death (executed in 1953)
    • Truman relieves MacArthur of command in Korea – DM returns in triumph, talk of impeachment… “Old soldiers never die… they just fade away”… and he did.
    • Churchill again elected P.M. of Britain

  • 1952

    King George VI dies; Elizabeth becomes Queen
    • Eisenhower and Nixon elected President and Vice President

  • 1953

    U.S. provides military aid to France to suppress Vietnam freedom fighters

  • 1954

    • Brown v. Board of Education

  • 1955

    U.S. begins economic aid to South Vietnam
    • Montgomery Bus Boycott; Martin Luther King becomes prominent.
    • Women ordained in Presbyterian Church
    • Churchill resigns as British P.M.
    • U.S. Supreme Court orders immediate desegregation of schools

  • 1956

    • Eisenhower and Nixon re-elected.
    • Anti-Communist revolution in Hungary brutally suppressed by Soviet troops.

  • 1957

    Gov. Faubus of Arkansas uses National Guard troops to prevent de-segregation of Little Rock High School. DDE federalizes troops and forces de-segregation.
    • Congress passes Civil Rights act prohibiting discrimination in public. Nevertheless continued resistance to integration in South.

  • 1958

    First Xerox machine
    • Soviets launch “Sputnik”
    • First trans-Atlantic jet passenger service.
    • DDE sends U.S. Marines to Lebanon to suppress Arab nationalists.

  • 1959

    Alaska and Hawaii become states
    • Castro comes to power in Cuba
    • Khruschev visits U.S.

  • 1960

    Lunch counter sit ins begin in South (beginning of “Civil Rights Movement”
    • Castro confiscates U.S. property in Cuba; U.S. begins embargo
    • Soviets launch dogs and mice into space and bring them back alive.
    • Kennedy and Johnson elected President and Vice President

  • 1961

    • US INCREASES INVOLVEMENT IN VIETNAM
    • U.S. breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
    • U.S. supports abortive “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba
    • JFK institutes the Peace Corps
    • Berlin Wall constructed
    • CORE attempts to desegregate interstate bus lines
    • Black Muslims advocate black power and separation of races

  • 1962

    Cuban Missile Crisis.
    • Military coup (with U.S. approval) overthrows Diem in Vietnam

  • 1963

    • KENNEDY ASSASSINATED
    • Oswald shot by Jack Ruby – country “stunned” Lyndon Johnson becomes President.
    • Medgar Evers – NAACP worker is killed
    • France vetoes British entry into Common Market
    • U.S. Nuclear submarine with 129 aboard is lost in Atlantic

  • 1964

    Johnson defeats Republican Goldwater and remains President –Goldwater only got 52 electoral votes, perceived as a war hawk.
    • U.S. Destroyer allegedly attacked in Gulf of Tonkin. Congress resolves that President Johnson given authority to use all power to repel attacks on U.S. forces… this resolution formed basis for massive escalation of U.S. military action in Vietnam without declaration of war.

  • 1965

    Massive escalation of U.S. military effort, combined with nightly TV coverage of war and opposition of liberal news media. Anti war demonstrations become wide spread
    • Race Riots in Watts area of L.A.
    • 5 million color TV’s
    • Malcolm X is shot and killed

  • 1966

    More race riots in many major cities
    • African American Edward Brooke is elected U.S. Senator from Mass.

  • 1967

    • More race riots
    • Vietnam war continues to escalate
    • Thurgood Marshall becomes first African American on U.S. Supreme Court.
    • First heart transplant
    • Black mayors are elected in Cleveland, Ohio and Gary, Indiana.

  • 1968

    • Tet Offensive
    • MLK assassinated
    • RFK assassinated
    • Nixon defeats Humphrey and becomes President
    • US Submarine sinks, 99 die.

  • 1969

    • U.S. - Vietnam peace talks start
    • 400,000 people attend “Woodstock”
    • My Lai massacre – Lt. Calley convicted in 1971
    • Golda Meir becomes Prime Minister of Israel
    • Yale, Bowdoin and Colgate admit women

  • 1970

    Martial Law in Canada because of Quebec separatists attacks
    • 448 Universities and colleges closed or on strike in protest against war
    • Nixon names two women generals

  • 1971

    Constitutional Amendment (26) lowering voting age to 18

  • 1973

    VIETNAM WAR ENDS- NIXON RESIGNS

  • 1980

    SOME OF CLASS NOW BORN

  • 1990

    • TR ELECTED VICE PRESIDENT

  • 1992

    CLINTON ELECTED President,

  • 2000

    DISPUTED ELECTION OF 2000 - George Bush BECOMES PRESIDENT
    African American Timelines