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Alaska is purchased from Russia
The Alaska Purchase was the United States acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire through a treaty ratified by the United States Senate and signed by President Andrew Johnson. The US $7.2 million check used to pay for Alaska. This would be over $100 Million dollars in today's currency. -
Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad
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John D. Rockefeller started Standard Oil
Standard Oil was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, marketing company, and monopoly. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case, that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly. -
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
Alexander Graham Bell is best known for his invention of the telephone, for which he received his first patent in 1876. Despite the hundreds of lawsuits that would challenge his claim to the invention, none would prove successful.Bell spent his life in pursuit of scientific discovery, and despite his myriad accomplishments as a scientist, and inventor. -
Thomas Edison brings light to the world with the light bulb
Thomas Edison’s serious incandescent light bulb research began in 1878, filing his first patent later that year. His experiments involved the fabrication and testing of many different metal filaments, including platinum. Platinum was very difficult to work with, and prone to being weakened by heating and oxygen attack. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
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Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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The Sherman Antitrust Act
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Ellis Island opens
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Carnegie Steel’s Homestead Strike
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Plessy vs Ferguson
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The U.S. declares war on Spain
A conflict between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to emergence of U.S. predominance in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. -
Hawaii is annexed
America's annexation of Hawaii extended U.S. territory into the Pacific and highlighted resulted from economic integration and the rise of the United States as a Pacific power. Britain and France forced Hawaii to accept treaties giving them economic privileges. The United States and Hawaii concluded a treaty of friendship that served as the basis of official relations between the parties. -
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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The Tenement Act
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. President McKinley is assassinated
William McKinley was shot on the grounds of the Pan American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York. He was shaking hands with the public when anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot him twice in the abdomen. McKinley died on September 14 of gangrene caused by the wounds. -
The Philippine Insurrection comes to an end
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The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine declares the U.S. right to intervene in the Wesern Hem
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Upton Sinclair releases The Jungle
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Pure Food & Drug Act and The Meat Inspection Act are passed
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Peak year of immigration through Ellis Island
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Henry Ford produced his first Model T (car)
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Creation of the NAACP
The NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. It was formed in New York City by white and black activists, partially in response to the ongoing violence against African Americans around the country. -
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
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The Assassination on Austria’s archduke Franz Ferdinand
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. Princip was one of a group of six assassins coordinated by Danilo Ilic, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society. This later is looked as the main cause for the start of World War 1 -
The Panama Canal is completed and opened for traffic
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The United States enters WWI
the U.S. joined its allies Britain, France, and Russia to fight in World War I. Under the command of Major General John J. Pershing, more than 2 million U.S. soldiers fought on battlefields in France. Many Americans were not in favor of the U.S. entering the war and wanted to remain neutral. However, the U.S. eventually did enter the war around April 6th of 1917. -
Ratification of the 18th Amendment
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Women got the right to vote.
Definitely not top 10 most important
