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Alaska is purchased from Russia
Alaska was bought from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. The Russian Minister to the United States at the time was Edouard de Stoeckl. He and Secretary of State William Seward negotiated and signed the Treaty with Russia. -
Completion of Transcontinental Railroad
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John D. Rockefeller starts Standard Oil
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Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
Alex GB invented the telephone after his father-in-law asked him to help perfect the harmonic telegraph. Alex did this, but he also focused on being able to transmit speech over the same amount of distance as the telegraph. The first words sent through the wire were "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you." -
Thomas Edison brings light to the world with the light bulb
Thomas Edison's laboratory was located in Menlo Park. The light bulb works by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb. The first light bulb could burn up to 13.5 hours. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
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Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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Sherman Anti-trust Act
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Carnegie Steel’s Homestead Strike
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Ellis Island opens
Ellis island is one of the entry ways in which immigrants use to get into America. This opening was the official opening of the island. 17 year old Annie Moore, from Country Cork, Ireland was the first immigrant to use the newly established immigration depot. -
Plessy v Ferguson
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Hawaii is annexed
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The U.S. declares war on Spain
The US declares war on Spain after the sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. The Battleship sunk in February of 1898. The war ended with the singing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. -
Rudyard Kipling published “The White Man’s Burden” in The New York Sun
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The start of the Boxer Rebellion
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Tenement Act
This Act started during the Progressive Era. It banned the construction of dark, poorly ventilated tenement buildings in the state of New York. Other things that the Act required was that new buildings must be built with outward facing windows in every room, an open courtyard, proper ventilation systems, indoor toilets, and fire safeguards. -
Pres. McKinley is assassinated and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt becomes President
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The Philippine Insurrection comes to an end
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Upton Sinclair releases “The Jungle”
The Jungle was a book about the horrors of the meat packing industry. People thought it was a fiction at first until they started connecting the dots. Someone made a kind-of movie about The Jungle in 1914. -
The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine declares the U.S. right to intervene in the Western Hemisphere
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Pure Food & Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act are passed
The Pure Food & Drug Act stopped all manufacturing, selling, and transporting of poisoned foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors. The Meat Inspection Act prohibits the selling of misbranded meat. It also ensures that meat is slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. -
Peak year of immigration through Ellis Island
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Henry Ford produces his first Model T (car)
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Creation of the NAACP
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
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The Assassination on Austria’s archduke Franz Ferdinand starts WWI
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The Panama Canal is completed and opened for traffic
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The United States enters WWI
United States was originally neutral in WWI. After Germany sunk the Lusitania, the US decided their neutrality was old news. Unrestricted submarine warfare is another reason why the US entered WWI. One of the last reasons was the Zimmerman note, which was when the Germans sent a coded message to the Mexicans, but the US decoded it first and learned of their intentions. -
Ratification of the 18th Amendment - Prohibition
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Women got the right to vote
Women fought for their right to vote for more than half a century. The first suffrage movements were organized in 1869. Women actually filed lawsuits against the Supreme Court members that refused their right to vote.
