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Start of the Civil War
The civil war started in South Carolina at Fort Sumter after 7 of the southern states receded from the union. The Civil War was fought between the Confederate South and the Union North. The South started it off with the victory at Fort Sumter. -
Battle of Antietam
The battles was the south’s first attempt in invading the north. They ended up having to retreat giving the north a victory. This battle was the single bloodiest day of the whole civil war with over 20,000 casualties. -
Sand Creek Massacre
Native Americans were driven away from their own land by miners and settlers but they fought back. A militia led by John Covington opened fire on a Native Village killing innocent men, women and children. The Natives fought back and killed every single soldier fighting there. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
After the south surrendered to the north ending the civil war, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He was in the presidential booth at the Ford theatre when John Wilkes Booth came up behind him and shot him in the head. John Wilkes booth escaped but was eventually caught in a barn and was shot in the neck. -
13th Amendment is ratified
This amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. So the south could no longer legally own slaves but they still found loop holes. Sharecropping was the main way the southerners still kept their slaves. -
14th Amendment is ratified
This amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. This included former slaves. It granted equal protection of the laws. -
Finished Transcontinental Railroad
The Transcontinental Railroad was started in Sacramento, California and Omaha, Nebraska. It took the US about 6 years to lay 1,775 miles of track. The two ends met in Promontory Point, Utah on May 10, 1869. -
15th Amendment is ratified
This amendment granted African American men the right to vote. It declared that right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This amendment still didn’t give this right to any women. -
Brooklyn Bridge opened
John Roebling designed the Brooklyn Bridge, the longest suspension bridge at the time. The building of this bridge was very unsafe and many people died during its construction. This bridge was a symbol of American Ingenuity. -
Ida B. Wells Discriminated
On May 4, 1884, a train conductor with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad ordered Wells to give up her seat in the first-class ladies car and move to the smoking car, which was already crowded with other passengers. The previous year, the Supreme Court had ruled against the federal Civil Rights Act of 1875. This verdict supported railroad companies that chose to racially segregate their passengers. She won her case on December 24, 1884, when the local circuit court granted her a $500 award. -
Oklahoma Land Rush
The Oklahoma Land Rush symbolized the closing of the frontier. Thousands of White Settlers rushed to claim 2 million acres of land. Sooner means a person that snuck onto the land before the race, that’s where “Sooner State” comes from. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay $25 for refusing to move to the Blacks-only train car. He is 7/8 white and 1/8 black but is still considered to be a black man. This case went to the Supreme Court and Plessy lost. The judge said that segregation is constitutional as long as it is “separate but equal”. -
Remember the Maine
The United States battleship Maine, riding quietly at anchor in Havana harbour, was suddenly blown up, apparently by a mine, in an explosion which tore her bottom out and sank her, killing 260 officers and men on board. No one has ever established exactly what caused the explosion or who was responsible, but the consequence was the brief Spanish-American War of 1898. American sentiment was strongly behind Cuban independence and many Americans blamed the Spanish for the outrage. -
Congress Declares War
The government in Spain declared war on the United States on April 24th. The American Congress had already authorised the use of armed force and the United States formally declared war on April 25th. A peace treaty was signed in Paris in December, Spain lost its last colonies in the New World. The United States took the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the Pacific island of Guam, and achieved worldwide recognition as a great power. -
New York City Subway Opens
At 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city’s innovative new rapid transit system: the subway. At 7 p.m. that evening, the subway opened to the general public, and more than 100,000 people paid a nickel each to take their first ride under Manhattan. Every day, some 4.5 million passengers take the subway in New York. -
Amos N Andy release
Amos N Andy was a black face radio show that became a TV show. The producers were two white guys named Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. Once the show went onto TV they started hiring actual black actors to play the parts. -
Philippines gain Independence
Filipino rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo proclaim the independence of the Philippines after 300 years of Spanish rule but after the war America didn’t give it to them. Aguinaldo made arrangements with U.S. authorities to return to the Philippines and assist the United States in the war against Spain. A government was formed with Aguinaldo as president in January 1899. On July 4, 1946, full independence was granted to the Republic of the Philippines by the United States.
