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Battles of Little Big Horn
Fought near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, pitted federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-76) against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Tensions between the two groups had been rising since the discovery of gold on Native American lands. When a number of tribes missed a federal deadline to move to reservations, the U.S. Army, including Custer and his 7th Calvary, was dispatched to confront them. -
Invention of the Light bulb
Though Thomas Edison didn’t come up with the whole concept, his light bulb was the first that proved practical, and affordable, for home illumination. The trick had been choosing a filament that would be durable but inexpensive, and the team at Edison’s “invention factory” in Menlo Park, New Jersey, tested more than 6,000 possible materials before finding one that fit the bill: carbonized bamboo -
Ex Parte Virginia
the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed congressional authority to enforce African Americans' rights to serve on juries in state courts. -
The Chinese Exclusion Act
For the first time federal law proscribed prohibition of all immigration of Chinese laborers because it created competition for jobs. -
The Dawes Act
Authorized federal government to break up tribal lands and dividing them into plots. Only Native Americans who accepted to live in these plots were allowed to become US citizens. This resulted in 90 million acres being stripped from Native Americans. -
The Largest Mass-Lynching in US History
11 Italian Americans were brutally killed in New Orleans, by a mob of thousands of angry men looking for violence. All these murders took place were in front of a cheering crowd motivated by bigotry. This event would go down as one of America’s darkest events pertaining to its discrimination toward Italians. -
Booker T. Washington Delivers the Atlanta Compromise Speech
One of the most significant and influential speeches of its time. Washington spoke for a compromise in Atlanta. He used a accommodationist strategy to achieve racial equality. Primarily through vocational training for African Americans with agriculture, mechanics and domestic services -
The Sinking of the Maine
An unknown explosion sank the battleship USS Maine in Cuba's Havana harbor killing 400 American crew members aboard. One of the first American battleships, the Maine weighed more than 6,000 tons and was built at a cost of more than $2 million. The sinking of this ship largely contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish American War.
