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Period: Feb 23, 1540 to
New Mexio Timeline
Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest. Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Francisco Coronado overland to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in present day New Mexico. -
Jan 1, 1541
Spanish conquistadors
Museum of Spanish Colonial ArtSpanish conquistadors arrived in New Mexico and encountered the Jemez Indians, who numbered around 30,000. -
Don Juan de Oñate
Don Juan de Oñate visited El Morro for the 1st time as he led some 1,000 settlers from Mexico to New Mexico -
Period: to
Nebraska Time Period
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Founding of Santa Fe
Palace of the governorsSpanish colonists founded Santa Fe. They built the block long adobe El Palacio as a seat for the governor-general. The Palace of the Governors is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the U.S. -
Po'Pay unites Pueblo against Spanish
Po'PayWar started when the Spanish were expelled from Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Pueblo people under leader PoPay. -
Diego de Vargas
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Founding of Albuquerque
AlbuquerqueSpanish Gov. Francisco Cuervo y Valdes founded a new villa consisting of 35 families and named it in honor of the viceroy of New Spain, who was also the Duke of Albuquerque, a town in southwestern Spain -
The Revolutionary War begins
Lexington and Concord -- Paul Rever's ride -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was signed. -
Valley Forge
Washington crosses the Delaware and spend the winter in Valley Forge. -
Juan Bautista de Anza - Governor of New Mexico
1777-1787 Juan Bautista de Anza served as the governor of New Mexico. -
Articles of Conferation
The Articles of Confederation were written. -
de Anza kills Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde in Rye CO
Juan Bautista de Anza led a punitive expedition across new Mexico and Colorado against the Comanches. His forces cornered and killed Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde and other leaders at what later became Rye, Colo. -
Revolutionary War ends
The British surrender -- Americans win the Revolutionary War, gaining independence from Britain. -
Mexican rule begins in New Mexico territory
Mexican rule began over the New Mexico territory. -
Becknell reaches Santa Fe on the Santa Fe Trail
Trader William Becknell reached Santa Fe, N.M., on the route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail. -
Magoffin diary
Susan Shelby Magoffin (18) accompanied her husband on a wagon train from Missouri to New Mexico and maintained a diary that was published in 1982: "Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin." -
Kearny captures Santa Fe
Kearny captures New MexicoU.S. forces led by Gen. Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe, N.M. He was commander of the Army of the West during the Mexican War. He then served as military governor of New Mexico for a month. -
US honors land grants in northern New Mexico
Gen. Kearny proclaimed all of New Mexico a territory of the United States. The US pledged to honor the land grants in northern New Mexico that were awarded by the Spanish and Mexican governors of the territory. Pueblo people had been given land grants, so kept their land. -
Pueblo Revolt of 1847.
Charles Bent New Mexico Governor Charles Bent was slain by Pueblo Indians in Taos. U.S. military seiged the Taos Pueblo. 150-200 Pueblo people died in the revolt. -
Fort Kearney, NEBRASKA established
The fort was built in response to the growth of overland emigration to Oregon after 1842. The first post, Fort Kearny, was established in the spring of 1848 "near the head of the Grand Island" along the Platte River by Lieutenant Daniel P. Woodbury. It was first called Fort Childs, but in 1848 the post was renamed Fort Kearny in honor of General Stephen Watts Kearny. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
New Mexico Museum Interactive SiteLOC Hispanic Reading RoomMexico ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million. See also: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/guadalupe-hidalgo/ and http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/ -
New Mexico & Utah territories created
Territories of New Mexico & Utah created. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, designed by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, was passed by the US Congress. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders -
Camels in New Mexico
U.S. Camel CorpsCongress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use. Sec. of War Jefferson Davis sent agents to northern Africa to purchase a small herd of camels and sent them to New Mexico to transport goods to California. In 1857, Lt. Edward F. Beale visited El Morro, New Mexico, with a camel caravan testing the feasibility of employing camels as Army animals in the American southwest. -
Homestead Act - NEBRASKA
Beatrice National HomesteadHomestead Act officially opened the Nebraska territory for settlement, leading to statehood in 1867. The US government passed the Homestead Act to stop the spread of slavery to the Western territories. Public land was awarded to any head of a family on condition that the settlers improve the land and live there for 5 years. Also checke, http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/ -
Navajo Long Walk
Navajo Long Walk1864-1865 Army Col. Kit Carson, directed by Brig. Gen. James Carleton, forced the move of some 9,000 Dineh Navajo from Canyon de Chelly in Arizona to the Bosque Redondo reservation near Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Only half the people survived in what came to be known as the Long Walk. -
Manuelito surrenders
Manuelito, the last Navajo chief, turned himself in at Fort Wingate, New Mexico. -
NEBRASKA Statehood
Nebraska state website
Most of Nebraska became the 37th state. It was expanded later. -
Navajo return to Hopi land
Navajo Indians living under confinement near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, were allowed to return to their homelands in Arizona following a visit by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Some 7,100 survivors of the 1864 Long Walk had been released onto a New Mexico reservation of 5,500 acres. The Navajo returned to Hopi land where 3.5 million acres, only 1/6th of their former homeland, was returned. -
Powell explores the Grand Canyon
Powell Photo Archive John Wesley Powell led an expedition to explore the canyons of the Green and Colorado River. Over 3 years he led two expeditions to explore the Grand Canyon. -
Jean-Baptiste Lamy
Jean Lamy1869-1886 St. Francis Cathedral was built in Santa Fe, New Mexico, under the direction of French priest (later bishop) Jean-Baptiste Lamy. In 1875 Lamy became archbishop of the New Mexican territory. -
Union Pacific RR completed
A greater influx of settlers came to Nebraska with the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad. -
Nebraska ratifies 15th Amendment
Nebraska, the last state needed to secure ratification, approved the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race. -
Kearney, NEBRASKA founded
Kearney, Neb., was founded. A typographical error kept the name misspelled. It was named after Stephen Watts Kearny, a US Army hero of the Mexican War. -
The Nebraska Relief and Aid Society was formed
Locust Plague 1874The Nebraska Relief and Aid Society was formed to help farmers whose crops were destroyed by grasshoppers swarming throughout the American West. A Nebraskan estim ted a grasshopper swarm to be 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide. In 2004 Jeffrey A. Lockwood authored “Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier.” -
Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson, NEBRASKA
Fort RobinsonFort RobinsonChief Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General Custer to his end at Little Big Horn. On Sep 5, 1877, Crazy Horse was fatally bayoneted at age 36 by a soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. -
Lincoln County Wars begin
Lincoln County WarThe bitter and bloody Lincoln County War began with the murder of Billy the Kid's mentor, Englishman rancher John Tunstall. Hired killers of James J. Dolan gunned down John Tunstall in Lincoln, N.M. Tunstall’s partner Alexander McSween formed a posse known as the Regulators to get even. Billy the Kid was part of the posse. -
Governor Wallace and Billy the Kid
General Lew Wallace was sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory and served to 1881. He went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid and wrote “Ben-Hur.“
On Nov 13, 1878, Wallace offered amnesty to many participants of the Lincoln County War, but not to Billy the Kid. -
Bandolier Cliff dwellings
Pueblo Chochiti men led anthropologist Adolph F.A. Bandolier to Frijoles Canyon in New Mexico. Bandolier later authored the novel on Pueblo life called “The Delightmakers.” Cliff dwelling in the area were preserved (1916) in a national park named after Bandelier. -
Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett
Billy the Kid (21), (born as Henry McCarty) aka William H. Bonney or Kid Antrim, was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. -
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
Buffalo Bill Buffalo Bill Cody's 1st wild west show premiered in Omaha. On Jul 4, One of the first Wild West shows was performed in North Platte, Nebraska. See also http://www.visitnorthplatte.com/BuffaloBillStateHistoricalPark.cfm -
Roswell, New Mexico
The New Mexico Military Institute was founded in Roswell, NM -
Filmmaking in New Mexico
A film was made in New Mexico for the first time. -
Carlsbad Caverns
Carlsbad CavernsJim White, cowboy, was one of the 1st white settlers to venture into New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns. His efforts helped turn the caves into a national park in 1930. -
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Seton's "Woodcraft" group founded
Ernest Thomas Seton In 1893, Seton was sent to Clayton, N.M.. Seton’s assignment: track and kill marauding wolves. After a brutal encounter with a wild wolf named "Lobo," Seton experienced a profound change of heart. He wrote “The King of Currumpaw, A Wolf Story,” published to worldwide acclaim in Scribner's Magazine the following year. In 1902, Seton founded an outdoor youth-education program known as "Woodcraft" that provided a model for all subsequent summer camps in the United States. -
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Gila Cliff Dwellings
Gila Cliff DwellingsThe Gila Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico was established as a national monument. People of the Mogollon culture lived in these cliff dwellings from the 1280s through the early 1300s. -
Boy Scouts of America Founded
Boy ScoutsBoy Scouts of America established. Ernest Thomas Seton was a founding member, and acted as the "Chief Scout" -
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Gerald Ford, 38 President
Gerald Ford (d.2006), 41st vice-president and 38th president of the United States, was born as Leslie King, Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, and achieved his highest prominence as the 38th president of the Untied States -
Pancho Villa
Pancho VillaPancho Villa led 1,500 horsemen in a night raid on Columbus, New Mexico. 18 US soldiers and citizens were killed as the town was looted and burned. President Woodrow Wilson responded by ordering General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing to "pursue and disperse" the bandits. Wilson called out 158,664 National Guard members to deal with the situation. -
Boys Town founded - NEBRASKA
Boys TownBoys Town founded by Father Edward Flanagan west of Omaha Nebraska. Father Flanagan firmly believed, “There are no bad boys. There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.” -
Bill Maudlin & GI "Willie" and "Joe"
Bill MauldinBill Maudlin, American political cartoonist whose GI “Willie” and “Joe” characters appeared in Stars and Stripes newspapers, was born in New Mexico. He won Pulitzer Prizes in 1945 and 1959. -
Colorado River Compact
Colorado River CompactThe Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries. The agreement was signed at a meeting at Bishop's Lodge, near Santa Fe, New Mexico by representatives of the seven states. -
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Marlon Brando, actor (On the Waterfront, The Godfather), was born in Omaha, Neb. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm XMalcolm X, (Malcolm Little) militant black Muslim leader, was born in Omaha, Neb. He spoke of racial pride and black nationalism and was assassinated in 1965. "You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom." -
Willa Cather
Willa Cather FoundatioN<a href='http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/willa-cather/about-willa-cather/549/' >PBS Willa Cather</a> Willa Cather authored “Death Comes for the Archbishop.” Bishop Jean Marie Latour, her novel’s hero, was the fictional name for the French Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, dispatched as a priest by Rome in 1850 to bring order and discipline to the New Mexican territory. -
Georgia O'Keefe
O'keefe Museum1929-1949 Georgia O’Keeffe used the Rancho de los Burros on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico as her summer home. The site abuts the Carson National Forest, rich in dinosaur bones. Ghost Ranch is now a conference center and 21,000 acre preserve owned by the Presbyterian Church. Her winter home was down the road in Abiquiu. Above Abiquiu is the Plaza Blanca, captured by O’Keeffe in her painting: From the White Place 1940. -
Dust Bowl
Dust BowlA major sandstorm, dubbed “The Black Blizzard,” ravaged the US Midwest. The Black Sunday was the worst day of the almost decade long Dust Bowl era. It ravaged Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In 2005 Timothy Egan authored “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.” -
Lake McConaughy, Ogallala, NEBRASKA
The people of the small town of Lemoyne, Nebraska, were told to move ahead of the damming of the Platte River, which created Lake McConaughy -
Atomic bomb
[Los Alamos](www.lanl.gov/history/index.shtml)The first US test explosion of the atomic bomb was made at Alamogordo Air Base, south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, equal to some twenty thousand tons of TNT. The bomb was called the Gadget and the experiment was called Trinity from a poem by John Donne (Batter my heart, three-person’d God), and it was conducted in a part of the desert called Jornada del Muerto, (Dead Man’s Trail), and measured the equivalent of 18,600 (21,000) tons of TNT -
Aliens in Roswell, NM
An object crashed near Roswell, N.M. The Army Air Force later insisted it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts gave rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft. -
1st rocket to space
A V-2 WAC-Corporal was the 1st rocket to outer space. It was fired at White Sands, NM, and reached 400 km. -
TV dinners
Swanson's TV DinnerSwanson and Sons introduced the TV Dinner. The turkey, sweet potatoes and peas package was priced at 98 cents and could be cooked in 25 minutes. It was invented by Gerry Thomas (d.2005), a salesman for Nebraska based C.A. Swanson, following an oversupply of turkey from the 1953 Thanksgiving holiday season. Campbell Soup acquired control of Swanson’s in 1955. -
Cliff's Notes
CliffsNotesCliff Hillegass (d.2001 at age 83) began publishing Cliffs Notes, condensed studies of literary works, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hillegass worked worked for Nebraska Book Company. -
Charles Starkweather
Starkweather Charles Starkweather, 19, killed the mother, stepfather and half-sister of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, at her family's home in Lincoln, Neb. Starkweather, who had also killed a gas station attendant the previous November, and Fugate went on a road trip which resulted in seven more slayings. Starkweather was executed in 1959; Fugate, who maintained she had been Starkweather's hostage, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life; she was paroled in 1976 -
Warren Buffett form Berkshire-Hathaway
Warren Buffett Warren Buffett of Omaha, Nebraska, took control of Berkshire-Hathaway. The textile company closed at $18 per share. In 2006 shares of Berkshire-Hathaway passed $100,000 per share. -
New Mexico ghost towns
Ralph Looney (d.2000 at 76) authored “Haunted Highways,” a collection of tales about New Mexico ghost towns. -
Sacred Blue Lake return to Taos Indians
Taos PuebloThe sacred Blue Lake was returned to the people of Taos pueblo when the US Senate voted to return 48,000 acres of land under dispute. -
Ted Turner & New Mexico
Ted Turner purchased the 588,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch from Pennzoil Corp. The land contained as much as $2.5 billion in gas underground. -
Nebraska tribes receive remains for reburial
The Univ. of Nebraska promised to return the bones of 1,702 Indians to tribes for reburial. It also agreed to build a memorial on a campus field where bones were burned over 30 years ago in an incinerator used to dispose diseased animal parts. -
The Great Platte River Road Archway
Great Platte River Road Archway The Great Platte River Road Archway over I-80 was dedicated near Kearney. It was here that the pioneer Oregon, Mormon and California trails converged to form the Great Platte River Road. -
Ted Kooser -- 13th U.S. Poet Laureate
Ted KooserTed Kooser of Lincoln, Nebraska, replaced Louise Gluck as US poet laureate. -
George Washington - Commander-in-chief
George Washington was appointed general and Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army
