1000.......Supposed date of Leif Ericson's 1st landing in North America, at Nova Scotia
1024.......1st paper money, in Sichuan Province, China
1040.......Chinese alchemist Pi Cheng produces first known movable type made of baked clay blocks
1286.......An Italian craftsman in Pisa makes the 1st pair of eyeglasses
1455.......Johannes Gutenberg publishes the Gutenberg Bible,
the first substantial book printed with movable
....................type, in Mainz, Germany
1492.......Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain finance the voyage of Italian explorer
Christopher Columbus: he
....................lands in the Bahamas, Cuba,
and Haiti
1493.......Columbus makes second voyage: lands at Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and
the Dominican Republic
1494.......Treaty of Tordesillas: Spain and Portugal divide the New World between
them
1496.......Henry VII commissions Venetian navigator John Cabot to discover a
new trade route to Asia
..............A monk who accompanied Columbus, Romano Pane, 1st describes tobacco
plant
1497.......John Cabot discoveres Newfoundland
1498.......Vasco da Gama of Portugal lands in Calicut India,
the 1st European to find a sea route to the East;
....................beginnings of the Spice Trade
1499.......Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda leave Spain on a voyage of discovery
to South America
1500.......Pedro Alvarez Cabral lands in Brazil and claims it for Portugal
...............1st recorded Caesarean operation on a living woman performed
in Switzerland by Jakob Nufer
1502.......Columbus makes 4th voyage: lands at Honduras and Panama
...............Vespucci returns from 2nd voyage, concluding that South America
is an independent continent,
......................distinct from India
1507.......Mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller proposes the New World be called
America after Amerigo Vespucci
1509.......Beginnings of slave trade: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Roman Catholic
bishop of Chiapas, proposes that
......................each Spanish settler should
bring Negro slaves to the New World
1513.......Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crosses the Panama Isthmus and sights
the Pacific Ocean
...............Juan Ponce de Leon lands at FL
1518.......Juan de Grijalva explores Mexico along the coast of the Yucatán
...............License to import 4,000 African slaves to Spanish American colonies
granted to Lorens de Gominot
...............Spectacles invented for the shortsighted
1519........Hernan Cortez invades Mexico and overthrows the Aztec empire, establishing
the colony of New Spain
...............Ferdinand Magellan begins his journey to circumnavigate the globe
...............Domenico de Pineda explores the Gulf of Mexico
...............Cortes brings Arabian horses from Spain to North America
1520........Chocolate imported to Spain from Mexico
1521........Francisco de Gordillo explores the Atlantic coast of America as
far north as SC
1524........Giovanni de Verrazano sails into New York Bay and up the Hudson
River
1528........Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca survives an ill-fated attempt
to conquer FL and is shipwrecked on
......................Galveston Island off TX. For
the next 8 years he lives among Indians and travels with 3 other
......................survivors to the Pacific,
becoming the 1st Europeans to see the American West
1530........Portuguese colonize Brazil
1534........Jacques Cartier sights Labrador on 1st voyage to North America
1535........Cartier's 2nd voyage: sails up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec
and Montreal
1538........Mercator uses the names America and North America for the 1st time
1539........Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay, FL
1540........Francisco Vasquez de Coronado invades
Zuni pueblos in AZ; further expeditions in the following
......................year take his men into TX
and OK and as far north as KS, searching for gold
1541........Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River
1542........Hernando de Soto dies on an expedition in the American west
...............1st European to enter CA: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo charts San
Pedro and Santa Barbara harbors
1543........Cabrillo expedition sails into San Francisco Bay and north to the
Rouge River, present border between
......................CA and OR
...............Andreas Vesalius publishes De humani corporis fabrica,
1st book of modern human anatomy
1549........Jesuit missionaries sent to South America
1555........French colony founded on the Bay of Rio de Janeiro
...............Aztec dictionary published
...............Tobacco imported to Spain from America
1560........Publication of the Geneva Bible, most accurate English translation
of its time
...............Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, writes about tobacco's
curative powers
1562........French attempt to colonize FL
...............John Hawkins makes 1st journey to New World, begins slave trade
between Guinea and West Indies
1563........Term “"Puritan" 1st used in England
...............General outbreak of plague in Europe kills over 20,000 in London
1564........The Spanish fortify a position at St. Augustine (now in Florida),
which becomes the oldest
......................continuously inhabited European
settlement in North America
1565........John Hawkins returns to England after 2nd New World voyage, imports
sweet potatoes and tobacco
...............!st African slaves arrive on North American mainland at the Spanish colony of St. Augustine
1567........Two million Indians in South America die of typhoid fever, contracted
from Europeans
1573........Francis Drake sights Pacific Ocean
1574........Portuguese colonize Angola and found Sao Paulo
1576........Martin Frobisher explores Frobisher Bay in Canada
1579........Sir Francis Drake sails into San Francisco Bay and claims the territory
for England
1582........1st English colony in Newfoundland founded
...............Gregorian calendar adopted by Spain, Portugal, and Italy, standard secular calendar
1584........Walter Raleigh explores VA and claims
it for England
1585........John Davis explores the Davis Straight between Canada and Greenland
...............Shakespeare leaves Stratford-on-Avon for London
1586........The Potomac River 1st indicated on a map by John White, a member
of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition
1587........English settlers land on Roanoke Island (now in NC), led by John
White
...............Virginia Dare becomes the 1st English child born in the New World,
on Roanoke Island
.............. Richard Hakluyt, Notable History, Containing Four Voyages
Made by Certain French Captains
......................Into Florida
1591........John White returns to Roanoke Island with supplies from England
and finds no trace of his
......................colonists, except for the
word "Croatoan" carved into the bark of a tree. It is now presumed
that
......................surviving members of the "Lost
Colony" intermarried with local Indian tribes
1598........Don Juan Oñate leads 500 settlers north from Mexico to Santa
Fe, which they confiscate and
.....................rename San Juan, creating the
1st permanent European settlement in the American west
1606........King James I grants a royal charter allowing 2 companies to start
colonies in America
1607........Jamestown founded in VA; 1st permanent English colony on the continent;
of 105 settlers, over
......................half die in the 1st
year from Indian attacks, sickness, or starvation
1608........Quebec founded in Canada by Samuel de Champlain; 1st permanent French
colony on the continent
...............Capt. John Smith sails the Potomac to the future site of DC,
1st documented exploration of the area;
......................he finds a large
American Indian village called Nachochtanke or Nacostan
...............John Smith, A True Relation of Occurrences and Accidents
in Virginia, 1st English book written in
......................America
1609........Henry Hudson explores Delaware Bay and Hudson River
1611........King James Bible published, “"authorized"”version
1612........Earliest colonization of the Bermudas from VA
...............Dutch use Manhattan as a fur-trading center
...............Tobacco planted in Jamestown, VA
...............John Smith, A Map of Virginia
1613........b. of Anne Bradstreet
...............English colonists in VA prevent French colonization of MD
...............Fire destroys Shakespeare's Globe Theater, Southwark, London
1614........Pocahontas marries John Rolfe
...............VA colonists prevent French settlements in ME and Nova Scotia
...............Adriaen Block explores Long Island Sound
...............Cornelius Jacobsen Mey explores the Lower Delaware
...............Walter Raleigh, The History of the World
1616........d. of William Shakespeare
...............William Baffin sails through Baffin Bay in search of a Northwest
Passage
...............Galileo Galilei prohibited by Catholic Church from further scientific
work during Inquisition
...............John Smith, A Description of New England
1619........1st representative colonial assembly in America held in Jamestown,
VA under Gov. Sir George
.......................Yeardley
...............1st Africans in North America arrive in VA, 20 people (it is
unclear if their status was as slaves
.......................or indentured servants) brought
by Dutch traders
...............1st known North American labor strike: Polish glass factory workers
in Jamestown, VA receive
.......................voting rights after walking
off their jobs in protest
1620........Pilgrims, leaving England in the Mayflower, land at New
Plymouth, MA and found Plymouth
.......................Colony; Miles Standish is
their most experienced leader; John Carver 1st governor
1621........Dutch West India Colony chartered; later acquires North American
coast from Chesapeake Bay
.......................to Newfoundland
...............English attempt to colonize Newfoundland and Nova Scotia
1622........William Bradford governor of Plymouth Colony (for next 30 years)
1623........1st English settlement in New Hampshire
...............William Tucker, 1st African American born in the English colonies
...............Shakespeare's First Folio printed
1624........VA becomes a crown colony; VA Company dissolved
...............Trading post at Merry Mount (south of present-day Boston) established
to compete with Plymouth
......................colony for trade
with Indians
...............Dutch settle in New Amsterdam (later New York City)
...............John Smith, A General Historie of Virginia, New England and
the Summer Isles
1626........Peter Minuit buys the entire island of Manhattan from Native American
chiefs for merchandise
......................valued at 60 guilders (approx.
$24); Dutch colony of New Amsterdam founded on
......................Hudson River
...............Salem, MA settled by Roger Conant
1628........Anne and Simon Bradstreet marry (she is age 16, he is 24)
..............."Great Migration" of English Pilgrims begins (through
1643)
...............Taj Mahal built in Agra, India
...............William Harvey's De motu cordis published in England;
1st medical text to describe the
......................circulation of blood and the
functions of the heart
1629........Colony of Massachusetts founded
...............Parish clerks in England required to list cause of death for all individuals on Bills of
......................Mortality; previous records (begun in 1512) only noted deaths from Black Plague
1630........John Winthrop, English Puritan leader, sails to MA with 1,000 settlers,
and founds Boston.
......................Bradstreet immigrates with
this group on the Arbella in a 3 month voyage. Bradstreet
......................settles first in Salem, later
in Charlestown
...............Pirates of all nationalities, called “"buccaneers,"
settle in Tortuga
...............1st public advertising, in Paris
1631........Dutch West Indian Company founds settlement at the Delaware River
...............Bradstreet moves to New Towne (Cambridge)
...............Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
1632........Charles I issues charter for colony of MD, under control of Lord
Baltimore
...............Henry Fleete, a fur trader, lives in the DC area
...............Second Shakespeare Folio published
1633........Dutch settle in CT
...............John Cotton becomes a religious leader in Boston
...............Trial of witches in Lancashire, England
1634........Anne Hutchinson immigrates to MA
...............Jean Nicolet lands in Green Bay and explores WI
1635........Bradstreet moves to Ipswich (known as Aggawam)
...............English High and Latin School founded in Boston, oldest secondary
school in North America
...............1st Catholic chapel in English America, built at St. Mary's City,
MD
1636........Welsh Puritan Roger Williams banished from MA, establishes Providence,
RI
...............Harvard College founded at New Towne (Cambridge, MA)
1637........Destruction of Pequod Fort, CT
...............English emigration to America restricted by royal proclamation
...............Thomas Morton, New England Canaan (satire mocking the
Puritans)
1638........Anne Hutchinson, leader of the New England Antinomians, banished
from Boston, sets up
.......................community in RI
...............New Haven, CT founded
...............Swedes settle on Delaware River (New Sweden)
...............Harvard College holds its first classes
...............Rev. Joss Glover smuggles a printing press illegally aboard the
John of London, along with
...........................60 lbs. of paper, and
crates of Dutch printer's ink, and sets sail from Greenwich. He
...........................perishes at sea later
that year
1639........1st printing press in North America, at Cambridge, MA. The press,
smuggled in from England,
...........................is run by a locksmith,
Stephen Daye and his two sons Matthew and Stephen. They print
...........................a 1st document, The
Oath of a Freeman (which survives only in facsimiles)
1640........John Eliot, Bay Psalm Book, oldest surviving book printed
in America, and the first American
......................best seller
1641........French settle in Michigan
...............General Court of MA codifies 100 laws
...............MA is the 1st English colony to legally recognize slavery (already
a common practice in the colonies)
...............Massacre of Ulster Protestants, Catholic Rebellion in Ireland
1642........English Civil War (through 1645)
...............Mathias de Sousa becomes 1st African American to vote in a Legislature
in America, in MD
...............Fugitive slave law passed in VA to penalize those who help enslaved
people escape
1643........Anne Hutchinson murdered and scalped by Siwanoy Indians in what
is now the Bronx, NY, along
......................with 6 of her children
...............Roger Williams, Key into the Language of America
1644........Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenet (essay against religious
conformity)
1646........1st record of syphilis in the US, in Boston
1647........Prominent MD landowner Margaret Brent becomes 1st woman to petition
to vote in US
...............Anne Bradstreet's brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, sails to England
with copies of her poems
...............1st appearance of Yellow Fever, in Barbados. It soon spreads
to American ports
1648........George Fox founds the Society of Friends (Quakers)
...............Taj Mahal completed in Agra, India; commissioned by mughal emperor
Shah Jahan as a
...................... memorial to his
second wife, Mumtaz Mahal
...............The Book of General Lawes and Libertyes of Massachusetts
1649........Puritan exiles from VA settle in Providence, MD
...............MD Assembly passes an act of religious toleration, professing
belief in the Holy Trinity
1650........Beginning of extermination of Native Americans
...............Dutch and English agree about respective frontiers of their North
American colonies
...............Anne Bradstreet's The Tenth Muse published in London;
1st published volume of poetry by an
...................... American settler
1652........ME is joined to the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1654........1st Jewish settlers arrive in the US after expulsion from Brazil,
settling in New Amsterdam
1656........1st municipal public library in US established in New Haven
1658........VA lowers import duties to
encourage more trade in slaves, in order to meet a growing need
.......................for labor
1659........1st European contact with Indians of the northern Plains: French
traders Medard Chouart
.........................and Pierre Esprit Radisson
travel to Lake Superior in search of furs
...............1st record of diptheria in US, in Roxbury, MA
1660........Colony of VA legalizes slavery
...............Dutch peasants (Boers) settle in South Africa
1661........John Eliot translates the Bible into Algonquin, 1st American Bible
edition
1662........1st colonial landowners in DC: George Thompson and Thomas Gerrard
...............Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom (epic poem on the
Judgement Day), American
......................best seller
1663........1st American hospital founded, on Long Island
...............1st organized resistance to bondage in the colonies: revolt of
enslaved Africans and white
.......................indentured servants in Gloucester
County, VA
...............Daniel Carroll builds Duddington Manor on what is today Capitol Hill in DC
1664........British annex New Netherlands (from CT to DE), rename New Amsterdam
New York
...............Union of CT and New Haven colonies
1665........b. of Anne, future Queen of Great Britain
...............Colony of New Jersey founded
...............English law and administration introduced into NY
...............Caleb Cheeshateaumuck, 1st Native American to take AB degree
at Harvard
...............1st modern census taken in Quebec
...............Great Plague of London (July - Oct) kills 68,596
...............Isaac Newton experiments on gravitation, invents differential
calculus
1666........Puritans from CT settle in Newark NJ
...............Great Fire of London destroys five-sixths of the city, including
87 churches and at least
...................... 13,000 dwellings
...............1st cheddar cheese
1668........Government of ME passes to MA
...............Isaac Newton constructs reflecting telescope
...............Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; William Penn, Sandy Foundation
Shaken
1669........SC founded
...............William Penn, No Cross, No Crown
1670........English settlement in Charles Town SC (later Charleston)
...............Hudson's Bay Company founded to trade in region of North America
draining into Hudson Bay
...............1st minute hands on watches
1672........d. of Anne Bradstreet
...............Chicago area explored by French missionary Jacques Marquette
...............John Josselyn, New England's Rarieties Discovered
1673........Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet reach the headwaters of the Mississippi
River and descend to AR
1674........Treaty of Westminster recognizes inhabitants of New York and New
Sweden as British subjects
...............Printing press established in Boston; 1st press in the American
colonies
1675........Obelisk raised in S. Kingston,
RI, a memorial to the Great Swamp Fight during King Philip's War
...................... between English
settlers and Narragansett Indians, one of the earliest memorials in America
1677........Ice cream becomes popular dessert in Paris
...............Increase Mather, The Troubles That Have Happened in New England
1678........Robert de La Salle explores the Great Lakes
...............1st American medical treatise: Thomas Thatcher's A Brief
Rule in Small Pocks or Measles
...............2nd edition of Bradstreet's The Tenth Muse published
posthumously
1679........NH separated as special province from MA
...............Dodo bird becomes extinct
1681........PA granted royal charter
...............Printing press established in Williamsburg, VA (2nd press in
American colonies)
...............1st professional female dancers at the Paris Opéra
1682........Explorers Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti
claim the entire Mississippi Valley
........................for France and name it Louisiana
...............Mary Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
........................(immensely popular work
will go through over 30 editions)
1683........Peace treaty between William Penn and Native Americans
...............1st German immigrants to North America
...............Ashmoleon Museum opens in London; 1st public museum (although
access is limited)
...............Anonymous, The New England Primer, most widely used
schoolbook of early America
1685........1st French settlers in TX
...............Printing press established in Philadelphia (3rd press in the
American colonies)
...............Fourth Folio of Shakespeare's works
1686........1st French settlers in AR
1687........Jesuit Father Eusebio Kino arrives in AZ; begins building a string
of 24 missions
...............Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica
1688........Plate glass cast for 1st time
1689........Massacre of French settlers at Lachine, near Montreal, Canada, by
Iroquois Indians
...............French explorer Baron de La Hontan sees the Great Salt Lake,
UT
1691........MA absorbs Plymouth colony and is granted a new charter
1692........William & Mary College founded in VA
...............Salem Witchcraft trials
...............Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
1693........Carolina divided into two colonies
...............The second American college is founded, The College of William
and Mary in VA
...............Printing press established in NY (4th press in American colonies)
...............Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World
1697........Maryland builds a fort within the present city of Washington, DC
...............Last remains of Mayan civilization destroyed by Spanish in Yucatan,
Mexico
...............St. Paul's Cathedral in Rome completed; architect Christopher
Wren
1698........Paper manufacturing begins in America
1699........Pierre Lemoyne founds 1st European settlement in Louisiana, Ft.
Maurepas
1700........Boston Massacre
...............Earl of Bellomont establishes a reading room in NY (will later
become the New York Society Library)
...............Samuel Sewall published the 1st American protest against slavery,
The Selling of Joseph
1701........Yale College founded (originally named Collegiate School)
...............Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds settlement at Detroit to
control Illinois trade
...............William Kidd hanged for piracy
1702........French settlement in AL
...............Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana
1703........DE separates from PA and becomes colony
...............Construction begins on Buckingham Palace, London
1704........French and Indians massacre inhabitants of Deerfield, CT
...............Boston News-Letter, 1st newspaper in America to survive,
issued weekly
1705........Jesuit Father Eusebio Kino produces a map that establishes that
CA is part of North America,
.........................not an island
...............Edmund Halley correctly predicts 1758 return of comet last seen
in 1682
1706........b. of Benjamin Franklin
...............Charleston SC successfully defended against French and Spanish
...............English inventor Henry Mills constructs carriage springs
1707........Union of England and Scotland under the name Great Britain
...............British land in Acadia in Eastern Canada
1711........Tuscarora War in NC; Native Americans massacre 200 settlers
1712........Antoine Crozat granted possession of LA for 15 years
...............Slave revolts in NY
...............Last execution for witchcraft in England
1713........Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, publishes book of poems in England
1714........Witch trials abolished in Prussia
1715........Rising of Native American tribes in SC
1716........1st company of English actors appears in America, at Williamsburg,
VA
1717........Mississippi Company, headed by John Law, holds monopoly of trade
with Louisiana
...............Hospital for infectious diseases founded in Boston
...............Inoculation against smallpox introduced in England by Lady MaryWortley
Montagu
1718........Founding of New Orleans by Mississippi Colony
...............Collegiate School of America moves to New Haven and is renamed
Yale University
...............English inventor James Puckle patents the machine gun
1719........Ireland declared inseparable from England
...............Founding of newspapers The American Mercury in Philadelphia
and The Boston Gazette
...............Founding of Rock Creek Church Cemetery, oldest cemetery in DC, and one of the oldest in the
................................US still in use. Granted historic designation in 1977.
...............Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
1720........Spain occupies Texas (through 1722)
...............1st collective settlement in VT
...............Gov. William Burnet of NY extends trade with Indians
...............1st serialization of novels in newspapers
...............Wallpaper becomes fashionable in England
1721........Regular postal service between London and New England
...............Swiss immigrants introduce rifles into America
1722........b. Samuel Adams
1723........Old North Church in Boston,
designed by William Price, includes among the first classical spires
1725........d. Peter the Great of Russia; succeeded by his wife Catherine
...............The New York Gazette founded
...............Alexander Pope translates Homer's The Odyssey
1726........Jonathon Swift, Gulliver's Travels
1727........Quakers demand abolition of slavery
...............American Philosophical Society founded in Philadelphia
...............1st marriage ad in a newspaper, Manchester England
1728........Dutch explorer Vitus Behring sails through the Behring Strait
1729........Founding of Baltimore
...............The Pennsylvania Gazette published by Benjamin and James
Franklin
...............John Smibert paints The Bermuda Group: Dean George Berkeley
and His Family
1731........Treaty of Vienna (betw. England, Holland, Spain, and the Holy Roman
Emperor)
...............English factory workers barred from emigration to America
...............Philadelphia State House constructed (later renamed Independence
Hall)
...............French build fort on Lake Champlain
...............Benjamin Franklin founds a subscription library in Philadelphia
...............Public concerts held in Boston and Charleston SC
1732........b. George Washington
...............Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack
1733........James Ogelthorpe founds Savannah, GA
...............Molasses Act prohibits American trade with French West Indies
1734........8,000 Protestants from Salzberg Germany settle in GA
1735........b. Paul Revere; b. John Adams
...............French settlement at Vincennes, IN
...............John Peter Zenger, publisher of New York Weekly Journal,
acquitted of seditious libel in
......................landmark trial for freedom
of the press
...............Sales of spirits prohibited in GA
1737........William Byrd founds Richmond, VA
1738........British troops sent to GA to settle border dispute with Spain
...............George Whitefield arrives in GA, religious leader of “"The
Great Awakening"”
1740........Univ. of PA founded
...............1st tinware manufactured in US by Edward and William Pattison
in CT; the brothers develop
......................a system of itinerant peddlers
to sell wares
...............1st romance novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel
Richardson, pub. in England
1741........French fur traders Pierre and Paul Mallet report an uncharted mountain
range the Indians
......................call the Rockies
...............Russians Vitus Bering and Alexi Chirikov explore the coast of
AK
...............Benjamin Franklin founds The General Magazine
...............Robert Feke paints Isaac Royall and His Family
1743........1st settlement in SD
...............American Philosophical Society founded
...............1 st sporting book printed in America, a sermon on the pleasures
of fishing
1746........College of NJ founded (later Princeton University)
1747........Benjamin Franklin, Plain Truth
1748........Subscription library opened in Charleston SC
1749........1st settlement of Ohio Company
...............Philadelphia Academy founded (later University of Pennsylvania)
...............City of Alexandria, VA founded
1750........1st playhouse opens in NY
1751........1st American hospital opens: Pennsylvania Hospital of Philadelphia
...............Port city of Georgetown established (now part of DC); 80 lots surveyed and platted by 1752
...............British calendar altered by Act of Parliament: Jan 1 to begin
the new year
...............Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
1752........Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning conductor
...............England and its colonies adopt the Gregorian calendar
...............Liberty Bell arrives in Philadelphia, commissioned by Isaac Norris,
speaker of the
......................Pennsylvania
Assembly from London; it cracks with the first stroke of its clapper
......................and is reforged
twice by artisans John Pass and John Stow in an attempt to fix it;
......................in 1753
it is hung from the belfry of the State House, now Independence Hall
1753........probable b. of Phillis Wheatley in what is now Senegal, Africa
...............French troops from Canada seize the Ohio Valley
...............English Act of Parliament allows naturalization of Jews
1754........Anglo-French War in North America over boundaries
...............King's College founded in NY (becomes Columbia University in
1784)
...............1st female physician graduates from Univ. of Halle, Germany
1755........British army defeats French near Ft. Duquesne (Pittsburgh)
1756........6 leading Quakers resign from PA Assembly
...............French drive British from Great Lakes area
1758........George Washington and John Forbes take Fort Duquesne (later renamed
Pittsburgh)
...............Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth; Jonathan Edwards,
The Doctrine of Original Sin
......................Defended
1759........British gain Quebec from French
...............The British Museum opens to scholars and the public (by appointment)
1760........1st exhibit of contemporary art, Royal Society of Arts, London
1761........Phillis Wheatley arrives in America, purchased directly off slave
ship by John Wheatley to be
......................his wife's personal servant
...............The Society of Friends, or Quakers, expel slaveholders from church membership
1762........France cedes its colonial territories west of the Mississippi to
Spain
...............1st medical library establised in US, at Pennsylvania Hospital
1763........Rising of Native Americans near Detroit spreads toward east
...............Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War; France cedes
its Canadian territories to England
...............1st chambers of commerce in NY and NJ
1764........Amendment of British Sugar Act to tax American colonies
...............Brown University founded in Providence RI
...............1st permanent settlement at St. Louis
...............Connecticut Courant (now Hartford Courant)
begins publication; oldest continuously published
.....................newspaper in US
...............Mozart writes 1st symphony (at age 8)
1765........British Parliament passes Stamp Act for taxing American colonies;
challenged by VA Assembly;
......................delegates at Stamp Act Congress
in NY draw up declaration of rights and liberties
...............John Morgan founds 1st medical school in US at the College of
Pennsylvania
...............Potato becomes most popular European foodstuff
...............Old Stone House in Georgetown built; oldest standing building in DC
...............John Singleton Copley paints Boy with a Squirrel
...............Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue
1766........Repeal of Stamp Act, but Declaratory Act states Britain's right
to tax American colonies
...............Mason-Dixon Line drawn by 2 English surveyors, marks boundary
between PA and MD (later used
.......................as the separation of free
and slave regions)
1767.........Taxes on imports of tea, glass, paper, and dye in American colonies;
nonimportation agreement at
.......................public protest in Boston
................NY Assembly suspended for refusing to support quartering of
British troops
1768.........MA Assembly dissolves for refusing to assist in collection of taxes
................Boston citizens refuse to quarter British troops
................Secretary of State for Colonies appointed in Britain
................Thomas Jefferson begins construction of Monticello
................John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere
1769.........Privy Council in London decides to retain tea duty in American
colonies
................Father Junipero Serra builds 1st in a string of Spanish missions
in CA
................Thomas Jefferson begins construction of Monticello (through
1809)
1770.........1st US census
................Boston Massacre:five men killed by British troops in downtown
Boston
................Britain repeals taxes on paper, glass, and dyestuffs in American
colonies
................1st medical degree issued in the US, conferred on Robert Tucker
by King's College
................Textile machines and steam power in England lead to Industrial
Revolution which slowly spreads
.........................all over the world
................Phillis Wheatley publishes 1st poem
................1st public restaurant opens in Paris
................Scottish explorer James Bruce finds the source of the Blue Nile
................James Cook sails into Botany Bay, Australia
................1st sighting of a kangaroo by Westerners
................Benjamin West paints The Death of General Wolfe, 1st
major painting to depict a contemporary
.........................event accurately
1771.........New York Hospital founded; 2nd hospital in the US
................1st edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica; William Robertson,
History of America
1772.........Boston Assembly demands rights of colonies, threatens secession
................Samuel Adams forms Committees of Correspondence in MA for action
against British
................James Bruce traces the Blue Nile to its confluence with the
White Nile
................Philip Freneau, A Poem on the Rising Glory of America
1773.........Boston Tea Party
................Philadelphia Museum founded
................1st insane asylum founded in US, in Williamsburg, VA
................Phillis Wheatley travels to England with her master's son; guest
of Countess of Huntington in
........................London. Publication of Poems
on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
1774.........British House of Commons refuses MA petition for removal of Thomas
Hutchinson as governor-
........................general
................Coercive Acts against MA include closing the port of Boston
................VA House of Burgesses calls for Continental Congress; it meets
in Philadelphia with representatives
........................of all American colonies
except GA; decides on nonimportation of British goods and to
........................disregard Coercive Acts
................Anne Lee of MA settles in NY to begin a spiritualist revival
................Spanish military officer Juan Bautista de Anza discovers an
overland route from Mexico to Mission
........................San Gabriel in CA; beginning
of expansion of Spanish settlement of the American southwest
................Quebec Act: secures Canada's loyalty to Britain and establishes
Roman Catholicism in Canada
1775.........American Revolution: Paul Revere's ride; defeat of British at Lexington;
2nd Continental Congress
........................at Philadelphia (where Patrick
Henry gives his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech);
....................... George Washington named
Commander-in-Chief of American forces; American victory at
....................... Fort Ticonderoga, British
victory at Bunker Hill
................Although General Geo. Washington initially expels all African-American
soldiers, he later reverses
....................... this decision; by war's
end, approx. 20 percent of all troops are Black
................England hires 29,000 German mercenaries for war in North America
................1st Abolition Society in America forms in Philadelphia
................James Watt perfects his invention of the steam engine
1776.........American Revolution: Washington forces British to abandon Boston;
VA Convention instructs its
........................delegates to Congress to
propose independence; VA publishes a Bill of Rights; Congress
........................carries Declaration of Independence;
American victory at the Battle of Trenton
................Phillis Wheatley meets George Washington
................Thomas Paine, Common Sense; Noah Webster, Ameerican
Spelling Book
1777.........American Revolution: Lafayette's French volunteers arrive in America;
the German Gen. von
.........................Steuben arrives to become
inspector-general of American forces; Stars and Stripes adopted
.........................as Continental Congress
flag; American victory at Battle of Princeton forces the British to
.........................retreat to NY
................James Cook lands in HI
................Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects pub. in
America
1778.........American colonies sign treaties with France and Holland
................Native American massacres at Wyoming, PA and Cherry Valley,
NJ
................Act of Congress prohibits import of slaves into US
................John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark
................Phillis Wheatley's master, John Wheatley, dies; Wheatley given
her freedom; she marries John
.........................Peters, a free Black man
1779.........US Congress dispatches forces into Wyoming Valley to fight against
Native Americans
................End of the French Revolution
1780.........American Academy of Sciences founded in Boston
................Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold caught spying for the British
................Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal lenses
................Elizaebth Freeman successfully sues for her freedom from slavery
in MA (Brom & Bett v. Ashley),
....................... setting a precedent that
will later be used for the abolition of slavery in the US
...............PA enacts a law for gradual emancipation of slaves; setting a model for similar laws in RI (1784),
....................... CT (1784), NY (1785), and NJ (1786)
1781.........End of all land operations of American Revolution with the British
surrender at Yorktown
................Herschel discovers the planet Uranus
1782.........Peace talks in Paris between Thomas Grenville and Benjamin Franklin
................Bank of North America established in Philadelphia
................1st use of the American Bald Eagle as a national symbol; used on a Continental Congress seal
................Gilbert Stuart, The Skater (Portrait of William Grant)
................Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American
Farmer
1783.........British and American proclamations for cessation of arms; Peace
of Versailles; Great Britain
..........................recognizes independence
of US
................Society of the Cincinnati founded, American Revolutionary group
................Slavery abolished in MA, NH, and ME
................Protestant Episcopal Church established in US
1784.........d. Phillis Wheatley
................Russia establishes its 1st North American colony on Kodiak Island,
AK
................The North West Company established in Canada to compete for
control of the fur trade on the
.........................northern Plains
................1st law school in US founded in Litchfield, CT
................Charles Wilson Peale opens 1st museum in US
1785.........James Madison's Religious Freedom Act abolishes religious tests
in VA
................Thomas Jefferson designs the Virginia State Capitol in a classical
design; construction begins
................Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
1786.........Rebellion of Daniel Shays in MA
................Salvery abolished in VT
................Mennonites from Central Europe settle in Canada
................American inventor James Rumsey designs 1st mechanically driven
boat
................Robert Burns, Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect
1787.........US Constitution approved by the Constitutional Convention
................NY Assembly imposes duties on foreign goods
................American inventor John Fitch launches a steamboat on the Delaware
River
................Dollar currency introduced in the US
................Daniel Shays leads a rebellion on indigent farmers against a
Federal arsenal in Springfield, MA
.........................to protest high taxes
................English settlement founded for freed slaves in Sierra Leone
................Alexander Hamilton publishes 1st of the Federalist Papers, 85
articles arguing for a central
.........................representative government
in the US
................Joel Barlow, The Vision of Columbus (epic poem)
1788.........US Constitution ratified by the states
................NY declared federal capital of US
................VA and MD offer land for the development of a Federal District
of 10 square miles for the seat of government
1789.........George Washington inaugurated 1st US President; he runs unopposed
and serves 2 terms
................1st US Congress meets in NY
................1st Federal Navigation Act
................Georgetown University founded
................The French Revolution: storming of the Bastille; Declaration
of the Rights of Man
................William Blake, Songs of Innocence; William Hill Brown,
The Power of Sympathy,
......................1st American novel; Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Oloudah Equiano
1790.........Philadelphia becomes federal capital of US
................1st patent law in US:1st patent goes to William Pollard of Philadelphia
for a machine that
...................... spins cotton
................1st session of US Supreme Court
................Washington DC founded by an Act of Congress, designated as a
"federal city"
................George Washington visits the country's oldest synagogue in Newport
RI to demonstrate
......................religious tolerance
................George Vancouver explores the coast of NW US
................1st musical competition held in US
1791.........The US Bill of Rights ratified; 1st 10 Amendments to the Constitution
................VT becomes 14th state admitted to the Union
................Bank of North America founded
................Maj. Pierre Charles L'Enfant designs plans for the capital city
of DC as a 10-square-mile diamond,
......................using land donated
by MD and VA
................Canada Constitutional Act divides the country into Lower and
Upper provinces
................Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple, 1st popular American
novel
1792.........KY becomes 15th US state
................1st coin struck at US Mint, the half-disme; Washington supplies
personal silverware for
...........................1st 1,500 coins
................Formation of 2 political parties in US: Federalists and Republicans
................Russian Orthodox Church establishes a mission at Sitka, AK
................James Hoban begins construction of the White House (then called
the Presidential Palace)
................World's 1st chemical society founded in Philadelphia
................Denmark becomes 1st nation to abolish slave trade
................Isaiah Thomas discovers the Cambridge Press, the 1st American
printing press, in New London,
...........................CT, originally used in
1639 in the Bay Colony by Stephen Daye and sons
................Benjamin Banneker publishes his 1st almanac, projecting the
dates and times of celestial events.
...........................He publishes well-received
almanacs every year though 1797
................Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
1793.........Eli Whitney invents cotton gin
................Fugitive Slave Act approved by US Congress: protects the rights
of slave owners for retrieving
..........................runaways
................Canadian fur trader Alexander Mackenzie becomes 1st white man
to cross the continent of
..........................North America
................Constructions begins on Capitol in DC, designed by William Thornton
................US law compels escaped slaves returned to owners
................The Louvre, Paris, national art gallery of France, opens
1794.........US Navy established
................Whiskey Insurrection in PA
................US Senate opens public galleries during regular legislative sessions
................1st American edition of a Shakespeare play, Hamlet,
printed in US
................Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason; William Blake, Songs
of Experience
1795.........Treaty of San Lorenzo: US and Spain settle boundary with FL and
US gets navigation rights
..........................on the Mississippi River
1796.........TN admitted to the Union at 16th state
................1st national game law restricts hunting rights
................George Washington refuses 3rd term as US Pres.; gives Farewell
Address
................1st political parties: the Federalists vs. the Democractic-Republicans
................English physician Edward Jenner introduces smallpox vaccination
................1st US cookbook, by Amelia Simmons, published
................Thomas Jefferson begins construction at Monticello
................Gilbert Stuart, George Washington
1797.........John Adams inaugurated 2nd US President
................1st US Naval vessels launched from Boston shipyard; the six
original ships include the USS
......................... Constitution,
later nicknamed "Old Ironsides," which remains the oldest commissioned
......................... warship afloat
................Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette, best selling American
novel
1798.........US Navy Dept. created
................US Marine Corps created
................Alien and Sedition Acts pass Congress
................Public health service established
................US treaty with Cherokee Indians
................Completion of Massachusetts State House, Boston, designed by
Charles Bullfinch
................Eastern and Western Cemeteries created by DC government, to address the lack of burial grounds in the
......................... L'Enfant Plan for Washington
................William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical
Ballads
1799.........d. George Washington
................1st Federal forestry legislation
................Daniel Boone leaves KY and establishes a settlement in Spanish
territory on the Missouri River
................Rosetta Stone found in Egypt by Napoleon's troops; unlocks
the mysteries of Egyptian
......................
hieroglyphics
1800.........Library of Congress established
................US federal capital moved to Washington DC: President Adams becomes
1st US President to
...........................occupy the White House
................US Stamp Office established
................Absalom Jones, a free Black, leads a group that unsuccessfully
petitions Congress for gradual
.......................... abolition of slavery
................Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved African American, plans an attack
on Richmond, VA; after the plan
...........................fails, Prosser is hanged
................Church of the United Brethren in Christ founded in US
................Eli Whitney makes muskets with interchangeable parts
................Bill Richmond, a former Negro slave, becomes a prominent boxer
1801.........Thomas Jefferson inaugurated 3rd US President in DC
................Congress designates DC as Federal Territory
................Library of Congress established
................Newspaper correspondents admitted to US Senate during legislative sessions
................Center Market constructed on Pennsylvania Ave. in DC (now the site of the National Archives)
................Robert Fulton produces 1st submarine, Nautilus
1802.........City of Washington DC charted and incorporated as a city; Robert Brent appointed 1st mayor
................Construction of US Capitol in DC completed
................Pres. Jefferson has toilets installed in the White House
1803.........OH admitted as 17th state
................Louisiana Purchase: 500,000,000 acres added to US (at a price
of 3 cents an acre)
................Haiti achieves independence from France after a 13-year rebellion;
abolishes slavery
1804.........Lewis & Clark Expedition leaves St. Louis on trip west to the
Pacific Ocean
................Alexander Hamilton killed in duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken,
NJ
................Napoleon Bonaparte becomes Emperor of France
................John Vanderlyn paints The Death of Jane McCrea
1806.........Zebulon Pike leads expedition to explore the headwaters of the
Arkansas River and make peace
.........................among the Pawnee of NE;
he crosses the Sangre de Cristo Mountains the following year
.........................and builds an outpost in
Spanish territory on the Rio Grande. After his capture and release
.........................by Spanish troops, he reports
on Spanish forces to the US and publishes an account of the
.........................expedition that makes him
a national celebrity
..................Thomas Jefferson designs his second residence at Poplar Forest
..................Austria officially abolishes the Holy Roman Empire
1807...........Aaron Burr tried for conspiracy
..................US Embargo Act against Britain and France
..................Congress passes a law ending the importation of slaves in
1808, leading plantation owners to
.........................import as many slaves as
possible before the deadline
..................Fulton's steamboat Clermont travels up the Hudson
River
..................US Evangelical Assn. holds 1st convention, led by Jacob Albright
..................Congressional Cemetery founded, to bury Senators and Representatives who die in office
..................William Wordsworth, “"Ode on Intimations of Immortality";
Joel Barlow, The Columbiad
1808...........Importation of slaves outlawed; this law leads to the rise of
slave smuggling and slave breeding
..................John Jacob Astor forms the American Fur Company to compete
with the North West Company
.........................of Canada
1809...........James Madison inaugurated 4th US President
..................Elizabeth Seaton founds Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph
..................The Act to Prevent Swine from Going At Large designates Massachusetts Ave. in DC as the
.........................boundary beyond which pigs were allowed to roam, clearing the central city of ranging livestock
..................Washington Irving, History of New York
1810...........John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company to expand his
trading empire to the Pacific
.........................Coast
..................Kamehameha the Great unifies HI under a single rule
..................Construction begins on Washington Canal
1811...........William Henry Harrison defeats Indians under Tecumseh at Tippecanoe,
IN
..................New Madrid Earthquakes: a series of 3 major earhquakes and
hundreds of lesser jolts take place
.........................from December through February
of 1812; the 1st centers near the NE corner of AR but the
.........................whole Mississippi River
Valley is affected; probably the biggest earthquakes ever to hit the
.........................US. The geography of the
region is permanently changed, with land masses rising, new
.........................rivers and lakes forming;
at one point the Mississippi River actually runs backwards
..................Luddites destroy industrial machines in north England in protest
of industrial revolution
..................Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
1812...........War of 1812 begins; US declares war with Great Britain
..................LA admitted as 18th state
..................Hamilton College in Clinton NY founded
..................Elgin Marbles brought to England
..................1st American book on psychiatry, Rush's Medical inquiries
& observations upon the diseases of the
.........................mind
..................Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; The Brothers
Grimm, Fairy Tales
1813...........Commodore Perry leads naval victory on Lake Erie
..................McGill University founded in Montreal
..................Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
1814..........War of 1812: Capitol and White House burned by British troops;
British flotilla captured on
..........................Lake Champlain; Treaty
of Ghent ends war Dec. 24
.................."Star Spangled Banner" 1st sung
..................John Vanderlyn, Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos
1815...........Defeat of British troops at New Orleans before news of Treaty
of Ghent reaches US
..................Thomas Jefferson's personal library purchased to replace the
Library of Congress collection,
..........................which was burned by the
British in 1814
..................Napoleon defeated at Waterloo
1816...........IN admitted as 19th state
..................English economic crisis causes large-scale emigration to Canada
and US
..................St. John's Church opens on Lafayette Square, across from the White House
1817...........Inauguration of James Monroe, 5th US President
..................MS admitted as 20th state
..................Executive Mansion (the White House), burned by invading British
troops in 1814, is rebuilt,
..........................its charred walls painted
white, giving rise to its modern name
..................US begins construction of Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo
NY
..................Andrew Jackson leads Federal troops in a ruthless war against
Seminoles and runaway slaves in FL
..................Thomas Jefferson begins construction at the University of
Virginia
..................Society for the Prevention of Pauperism founded, early social
reform group
..................Thomas Gallaudet founds 1st US school for the deaf in Hartford,
CT
..................Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
1818...........IL admitted as 21st state
..................Design of US flag established
..................Federal treaty with Chicasaw Indians
..................US and Canada agree to border along the 49th parallel
..................Black Ball Co offers 1st scheduled shipping service between
the US and England; prior to this,
..........................ships crossed only when
their holds were full of cargo and weather was fair, making
..........................arrivals unpredictable
..................1st steamship to cross the Atlantic, Savannah, takes 26 days
..................1st professional horse racing in US
..................7th Street Turnpike laid (through 1822), creating a primary transportation artery into DC
..................Jane Austen, Persuasion
1819...........b. Walt Whitman
..................AL admitted as 22nd state
..................FL acquired from Spain
..................Congress moved back into reconstructed Capitol
..................The Prado Museum opens in Spain
..................Washington Irving, Sketch Book, 1st work by an American
writer to gain financial and
...................... critical success
on both sides of the Atlantic
1820...........ME admitted as 23rd state
..................Missouri Compromise prohibits slavery in the Louisiana Territory
north of 36 degrees
..................Maj. Stephen Long of the Corps of Engineers leads an expedition
across KS to the Rocky
...............................Mountains and labels
the area east of the Rockies “"The Great American Desert"”
..................DC residents gain right to vote for mayor and city council
..................Edward Hicks begins painting versions of the "Peacable
Kingdom" in Bucks County, PA
..................John Keats, “"Ode to a Nightingale"”
1821...........MO admitted as 24th state
..................Massachusetts General Hospital established; modelled after
European medical practices
..................1st college of pharmacy founded in Philadelphia
..................George Washington University established in DC
1822...........American Colonization Society founds Liberia on the African coast
and repatriates many
...............................American slaves
..................Denmark Vesey, a free African American carpenter, plans a
slave revolt with 9,000
...............................participants in Charleston,
SC; the plan is thwarted and he and 47 others are executed
.................Charles Wilson Peale, The Artist in His Museum
1823...........Monroe Doctrine declares America “"henceforth not
to be considered subjects for future
...............................colonization by any
European powers"”
..................1st licensed apothocary shop in US opens in New Orleans
..................Mexico becomes republic
..................Charles Babbage constructs his earliest calculating machine;
considered precursor to computer
..................James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers
1824...........Bureau of Indian Affairs established
..................US establishes outposts in OK in preparation for forced removal
of Cherokee and Choctaw tribes
...............................from the southeast
..................Frontier treaty signed between Russia and US
..................Earliest scientific description of a dinosaur, based on fossil evidence
..................Original US Capitol building completed with a small dome made of brick and wood, covered with copper
1825...........b. Frances E.W. Harper
..................John Quincy Adams inaugurated 6th US President
..................Opening of Erie Canal, presided over by NY Governor DeWitt
Clinton
..................New Harmony, IN becomes a communal, utopian society
..................American Colonization Society begins publishing a monthly newspaper, African Repository (through 1892)
1826...........1st photographys made by Nicephore Niepce
..................John Silva Meehan begins newspaper, the Washington Gazette, later renamed The United States Telegraph
..................James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
1827...........Joseph Niepce produces photographs on a metal plate covered with
bitumen of Judea
..................Karl Baedeker publishes 1st travel guide
..................1st sulfur friction matches developed by John Walker
..................1st stagecoaches built, with suspension system, leather seats, room for baggage
..................John James Audubon publishes the first volume of Birds of America
1828...........Charles Carroll, richest American of his time, begins construction
of Baltimore & Ohio, 1st
..............................RR built in US for
transportation of passengers and freight
..................Chesapeake and Ohio Canal completed
..................A complete national postal network is finally in place: the
US Postmaster promises speedy
..............................mail delivery throughout
the system
..................Thomas Dartmouth Rice presents "Jump Jim Crow" in Louisville, KY, 1st popular minstrel show;
..............................Rice dances and sings in blackface and caratures the behavior of slaves
..................Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language
1829...........Andrew Jackson inaugurated 7th US President; 1st President of
working class background
..................Chesapeake and Delaware Canal opens
..................1st US patent for typewriter granted to William B. Burt of
Detroit
..................James Smithson leaves money in his will for the institution
for the "dissemination and diffusion of
.............................knowledge" in
the US; this becomes the start of the Smithsonian Institution
..................Slavery abolished in Mexico
..................Suttee, custom of immolating a widow along with her dead husband,
abolished in British India
..................David Walker publishes anti-slavery pamphlet, Walker's
Appeal
1830...........b. Emily Dickinson
..................Underground Rail Road established
..................Indian Removal Act
..................Religious Society of Mormons founded by Joseph Smith at Fayette
NY
..................1st industrial union in US: The New England Association of
Farmers, Mechanics, and Other
................... ......... Workingmen
..................Race between a steam locomotive, the "Tom Thumb,"
and a horse-drawn rail carriage in MD
.................."Jim Crow," popular American song, performed by
Thomas “"Daddy" Rice
1831...........Nat Turner leads slave uprising in VA; 60 whites are killed;
Turner is later executed. This leads to
...............................the strengthening
of Slave Codes throughout the south
..................Providence race riots; 4 killed
..................Former US Pres. John Quincy Adams elected MA Representative
..................1st organized 3rd political party in US, the Anti-Masons,
hold nominating convention to pick a
..............................presidential candidate
..................Abolitionist William Garrison begins publication of abolitionist
newspaper The Liberator
..................Anne Royall and Sally Stack, two of the earliest professional women journalists in the US, begin
..............................co-editing Paul Pry, a newspaper dedicated to exposing political corruption and fraud, based in DC
..................Charles Darwin sails on HMS Beagle as naturalist
on a surveying expedition to South
..............................America, New Zealand,
and Australia
..................Opening of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and Cambridge,
MA; 1st American cemetery
.............................. laid out in an open
garden plan, it influenced the creation of other cemeteries across the US
1832...........New England Anti-Slavery Society founded in Boston
..................Quaker teacher Prudence Crandall enrolls an African-American
girl in her CT school; when white
..............................students withdraw,
she changes the school's mission to serve Black students
..................George Catlin begins voyage up the Missouri with trappers,
painting hundreds of Indian portraits
..................Henry Schoolcraft "discovers" the headwaters of
the Mississippi River by following directions
..............................given to him by Ojibwa
Indians; he names the lake Itasca, a contraction of the Latin words
..............................veritas and
caput (true head)
..................Cholera epidemic in New Orleans kills over 4,000 people
..................Publication of the 1st political campaign biography, The Life of Jackson
..................1st horse-drawn trolleys in NY
..................1st American case of cholera reported, in NY
..................1st US public art gallery opens at Yale University
1833...........Beginning of Whig Party in America
..................American Anti-Slavery Society founded in Philadelphia; New England Anti-Slavery Society founded
............................. in Boston under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison; Female Anti-Slavery Society
..............................founded in Philadephia under the leadership of Margaretta Forten
..................Refinements in printing technologies lower the cost of daily newspapers to one or two cents each
..................Abolition of slavery in the British empire
..................Oberlin College 1st to admit women
..................Samuel Colt develops the revolver
..................New York Sun founded, 1st successful penny daily
1834...........Pres. Jackson censured by Senate for removing deposits from the
Bank of the US
..................Abraham Lincoln enters politics at age 25, as assemblyman
in IL legislature
..................Cyrus McCormick patents his reaping machine
..................Pro-slavery riots break out in Philadelphia
..................Philadelphia becomes 1st American city with a regular police
force
..................Spanish Inquisition, begun during the 13th c., finally suppressed
..................English mathematician Charles Babbage invents the principle
of the “"analytical engine,"”
................................forerunner to the
computer
1835............TX declares its right to secede from Mexico
...................Seminole Indians in FL, under Chief Osceola, begin a seven-year
war of resistance against
................................their forced removal
...................Halley's Comet reappears
...................Showman Phineas Taylor Barnum begins his career with the
exhibition of Joice Heth, an
................................African-American
woman alleged to be over 160 years old and George Washington's
................................nurse
...................Samuel Colt introduces the revolver
...................French doctor Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis proves by analysis
of medical statistics that the
................................practice of blood-letting
is useless to treat or prevent disease; the practice, however,
................................remains widespread
....................B&O RR tracks sited on the Mall in DC
....................National Theatre opens in DC
....................Richard Lawrence attempts to assassinate Pres. Jackson during a state funeral at the US Capitol;
..............................his pistols misfire, and Jackson beats him with his cane. Lawrence is later found not guilty
..............................by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution
....................Snow Riot: DC's first race riot, in which working class white mechanics vandalize African American
..............................establishments, including churches, homes, private schools, and the Epicurian Eating House,
..............................the city's foremost restaurant, owned by Beverly Snow
1836............AR admitted as 25th state
...................Seige of the Alamo; Davy Crockett dies in the Siege; TX wins
independence from Mexico and
................................becomes a republic
with Sam Houston as Pres. Texans later vote to seek annexation to US
...................Samuel Colt patents the revolver
...................England replaces general Bills of Mortality for parishes with individual documents of death;
................................beginning of modern recod-keeping by the state
...................Construction begun of Treasury Department, Washington, DC,
designed by Robert Mills (through 1842)
...................Patent Office in DC completed (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery)
...................Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts,
after a Thunderstorm (The
...................... Ox-bow)
...................Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
1837............Martin Van Buren inaugurated 8th US President; 1st born under
the US flag
...................MI admitted as 26th state
...................Financial Panic of 1837 leads to 4 years of Depression
...................New York labor riots
...................Federal treaty with Seminole Indians
...................Gag Law, aimed at suppressing slavery, passes Congress
...................Horace Mann begins educational reforms in MA
...................Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary opens in MA; founded by Mary
Mason Lyon, 1st college-level
......................institution for women
...................E.P. Lovejoy, editor of an abolitionist newspaper, murdered
by a mob in Alton, IL
...................Samuel Morse exhibits his electric telegraph at the College
of the City of NY
...................Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice Told Tales
1838............Queen Victoria's coronation
...................The New York Herald is 1st US newspaper to employ
European correspondents
...................Frederick Douglass escapes slavery in a Baltimore shipyard
by disguising himself as a sailor; he
......................travels by train
to NY with borrowed papers
...................Robert Purvis, an African American abolitionist, becomes
chair of the General Vigilance
......................Committee in NYC,
a group that assists runaway slaves
...................Half of Charleston, SC burns in massive fire
...................Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Seraphim and Other Poems
1839............Charles Goodyear develops vulcanized rubber
...................Cyrus McCormick perfects the reaper
...................Africans mutiny on slave ship Amistad; they are
later acquitted and returned to Africa in 1841
...................1st dental school in the world founded, in Baltimore
...................Abner Doubleday lays out 1st baseball field in Cooperstown,
NY
...................Construction begins on Trinity Church, New York, designed
by Richard Upjohn
...................English scientist William Fox Talbot invents the positive/negative
process still used today to
...................... develop photographs;
French artist and chemist Louis J.M. Daguerre develops 1st commercially
...................... used photographic
process
...................Edgar Allen Poe, Fall of the House of Usher; Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Voices of the Night
1840............Samuel Morse patents the telegraph
...................Last Rendezvous on the Green River marks the end of the mountain
trapping era, following
...............................declines in the beaver
population
...................1st citizens' petition to abolish slavery nationwide, circulated
by Zephaniah Smith and signed by 400
...............................women of Glastonbury,
CT, presented to Congress
...................Emily Dickinson begins attending Amherst Academy
...................World Anti-Slavery Society Convention held in London
...................William Fox Talbot patents the calotype, 1st photographic
process that produces negatives from
...................... which identical
prints can be made
...................Horatio Greenough sculpts George Washington, a seated
figure in a toga
1841............William Henry Harrison inaugurated 9th US President; dies of
pneumonia after one month in office
...................John Tyler inaugurated 10th US President; 1st to assume office
due to death of predecessor;
..............................detractors call him
“"His Accidency"”
...................1st impeachment proceedings; brought against Pres. Tyler,
for misusing veto power; resolution
..............................fails to pass
...................Amistad Decision: Africans accused of rebellion
freed by Supreme Court
...................USS Creole, carrying slaves from VA to LA, is seized
by the slaves and sails into Nassau where
..............................they become free
....................New York Tribune begins publication
....................Alexander Bain of Scotland patents 1st electric clock
....................P.T. Barnum opens the American Museum in NY; combines scientific
collections, live animals, live
..............................entertainment, art,
and objects that were patently fake
....................Trinity Church constructed in NYC; architect, Richard Upjohn
....................US Treasury Building in DC completed
1842.............1st public art museum in US: Wadsworth Atheneum
....................1st orchestra in US: New York Philharmonic
....................Charles Dickins makes a visit to Washington, DC, which he
finds uncouth and pretentious. He labels
.............................it the "city of
magnificent intentions"
1843.............Social reformer Dorothea Dix issues report to MA legislature
revealing shocking conditions
...............................in prisons and asylums
.....................Congress grants Samuel Morse $30,000 to build 1st telegraph
line from Washington to Baltimore
.....................The Great Migration, a party of 1,000 pioneers, leaves
MO in a train of over 100 wagons with
................................a herd of 5,000
cattle to settle the Willamette Valley, OR
.....................John C. Frémont crosses the Rocky Mtns. to CA
.....................Conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker marry sisters Sarah
and Adelaide Yates
.....................Hiram Powers sculpts The Greek Slave; Bunker Hill
Monument completed in Charlestown, MA
1844..............Rioting between Irish immigrants and nativists in Philadelphia;
6 to 10 killed
.................... Peace and trade treaty with
China
.....................Joseph Smith killed by a mob in Carthage, IL; Brigham Young
becomes Mormon leader
.....................Samuel F. B. Morse patents the telegraph; 1st message sent:
"What hath God wrought?"
.....................Baha'i faith founded in Iran by Bahaullah
1845..............James K. Polk inaugurated 11th US President
.....................FL admitted as 27th state
.....................TX admitted as 28th state
.....................1st clipper ships launched; become American symbols of
beauty
.....................US Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, MD
.....................David Levy Yulee becomes 1st Jew elected to US Senate (D-FL)
.....................Alexander Joy Cartwright creates the baseball diamond,
with 90 feet between bases
.....................George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri
.....................Henry David Thoreau constructs a small cabin at Walden
Pond in Concord, MA. He writes: "I
.................................went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately..."
.....................Frances Harper, Forest Leaves; Margaret Fuller,
Woman in the Nineteenth Century; Edgar Allan
.................................Poe, The Raven
and Other Poems; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick
.................................Douglass
1846..............Mexican War (through 1848): Mexico cedes territory that will
become CA, NM, AZ, NV, UT,
..................................CO, and WY in
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
.....................IA admitted as 29th state
.....................Treaty with Great Britain establishes OR boundary at the
49th parallel
.....................Smithsonian Institution founded in DC
.....................Retrocession of land from DC to VA beyond the Potomac River
.....................Donner Party trapped by heavy snows in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, driven to cannibalism
.................................to survive the
winter
.....................John Deere constructs a plow with a steel moldboard
.....................Sewing machine patented by Elias Howe
.....................American dentist W.T. Morton 1st uses ether as an anesthetic
.....................Great Potato Famine in Ireland
.....................John Greenleaf Whittier, Voices of Freedom
1847..............Mormons found Salt Lake City
.....................British Factory Act restricts working day to 10 hours for
women and children
.....................1st school established for mentally retarded students,
in MA
.....................American Medical Assn. founded
.....................1st US postage stamps
.....................Frederick Douglass begins publication of abolitionist newspaper
The North Star
.....................Gamaliel Bailey beings publishing The National Era, an abolitionist weekly newspaper in DC
.....................Emily Dickinson attends Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary for
one year
.....................Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poems; Charlotte Bronte,
Jane Eyre; Emily Bronte, Wuthering
................................Heights;
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline; Engels and Marx, Communist
............................... Manifesto
1848..............WI admitted as 30th state
.....................Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: end of Mexican war, US claims
TX, CA, NM, and other
................................territories in the
US
......................Gold discovered in CA at Sutter's Creek, CA by James Marshall
......................1st Women's Rights Convention, in Seneca Falls, NY, convened
by Lucretia Mott and
................................Elizabeth Cady Stanton;
draws 300 delegates. Convention adopts a Declarartion of
................................Sentiments and 11
resolutions, including the right to vote, launching the women's
................................suffrage movement
......................The Pearl Escape, largest recorded escape attempt in US history. 76 slaves board a schooner
..............................in DC, sail to the Chesapeake Bay, and are captured. Ship towed back to DC; 3 days of
..............................rioting ensue
......................Three famous successful escapes: Harriet Tubman esapes slavery in Dorchester County, MD
................................and makes her way on foot to Philadelphia; William and Ellen Craft escape slavery in
................................Macon, GA, by disguising Ellen as a sickly white gentleman taking the train to seek
................................medical treatment with his servant; Henry "Box" Brown escapes slavery in Richmond,
................................VA by shipping himself to Philadelphia in a large wooden crate
......................New York News Agency founded (becomes Associated Press
in 1856)
......................Construction begins on Washington Monument in DC (it will
not be completed for 37 years)
1849...............Zachary Taylor inaugurated 12th US President; 1st career
soldier to be elected to Pres.
......................Creation of US Dept. of the Interior
......................Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery; returns south to
eventually lead over 300 slaves to
................................freedom on the Underground
Railroad
......................Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman to graduate from
medical school, at Geneva Medical
................................ School in NY
......................In Roberts v. City of Boston, an African American parent
sues for public school desegregation
...............................and loses
......................Astor Place Riots in NYC, over English vs. American interpretations
of Shakespearian plays;
...............................soldiers fire into
the crowd and 26 to 30 are killed
......................Stereoscopic viewer invented by David Brewster, creating
an international obsession with
...............................viewing paired photos
that create the illusion of three dimensions
......................Safety pin patented by Walter Hunt
......................Amelia Bloomer begins American dress reform
......................Asher B. Durand, Kindred Spirits
......................Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers and "Civil Disobedience"
1850...............Pres. Taylor dies (from either food poisoning, sunstroke,
or cholera)
......................Millard Fillmore inaugurated 13th US President
......................CA admitted as 31st state
......................Henry Clay introduces compromise resolutions on slavery
in US Senate, allowing for "free" and
..............................."slave"
states
......................Indenture Act of CA establishes slavery of Indians deemed
“vagrant”
......................C & O Canal completed
......................Levi Strauss begins manufacturing heavyweight trousers
for gold miners
......................Gas mask patented by Benjamin Lane
......................Frances Harper leaves Baltimore to teach at Union Seminary
in Ohio
......................Harriet Tubman begins helping slaves escape on the Underground Railroad
......................US Congress abolishes slave trade in DC
......................William Wordsworth, British poet laureate, dies; succeeded
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
......................Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese;
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
................................Representative
Men; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
1851...............Gleason's Pictorial, 1st illustrated picture weekly
......................1st continuous stitch sewing machine patented by Isaac
Singer
......................Fort Laramie Treaty signed by US and representatives of
Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow,
................................Arikara, Assiniboin,
Mandan, and Gros Ventre tribes, intended to insure peace on the
................................Plains by dividing
the land into separate tracts for each tribe, and setting annual
................................allotments of $50,000
in supplies and provisions from the US government in exchange
................................for the right to
establish roads and military outposts
......................Sparrows introduced into US from England by Thomas Woodcock
......................ME and IL begin to enforce prohibition of liquor
......................Thomas Walter appointed architect of the US Capitol, begins
designing present dome and
................................House and Senate
wings
......................2nd Women's Rights Convention, Akron, OH; Sojourner Truth
delivers her “"Ain't I a
................................Woman?" speech
......................Cuba declares its independence
......................12 countries attend the International Sanitary Conference
in Paris; agree to cooperative
................................methods to study
and control illness
......................1st cast-iron frame building constructed
......................1st commercial kosher slaughterhouse opens in Brooklyn
......................Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware
......................New York Times begins publication
......................Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables;
Herman Melville; Moby-Dick
1852...............1st public display of a woman operating a sewing machine
......................Over 20,000 Chinese immigrants enter CA to search for
gold
......................1st Plenary Council of American Roman Catholics held in
Baltimore
......................US imports sparrows from Germany as defense against caterpillars
......................Wells Fargo Company founded
......................Niagara Falls suspension bridge constructed
......................American Pharmaceutical Assn. founded
......................Dorothea Dix advocates for humane treatment of the mentally
ill; St. Elizabeth's Hospital
...................................founded in DC
as an insane asylum
......................US government bans burials within the original DC city boundaries, leading to the creation of
................................rural cemeteries throughout the 1850s and mass disinterrals
......................Frances Harper accepts a teaching position in Little York,
PA
......................Emily Dickinson's 1st poem published anonymously in the
Springfield Republican
......................Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
1853...............Franklin Pearce inaugurated 14th US President; his wife remains
in mourning throughout
...................................the term in office
for the death of their third son in a train derailment
......................Samuel Colt revolutionizes the manufacture of small arms
......................1st Buddhist temple in US erected: Kong Chow Temple in
San Francisco
......................Yellow Fever epidemic in New Orleans kills over 8,000 people
......................Commodore Perry opens trade with Japan
......................Largest tree in the world, Wellingtonia gigantea,
discovered in CA
......................Equestrin statue of Andrew Jackson dedicated in Lafayette Square in DC,1st equestrian statue
..............................in US, designed by Clark Mills
1854...............Gadsden Purchase: southern AZ and NM become part of US
......................Kansas-Nebraska Act; Bleeding Kansas”: fighting between free and slave
states
......................Republican Party formed in US
......................Lincoln University founded for African American students
......................Florence Nightingale serves as a nurse to British troops
in the Crimean War
......................Frances Harper moves to Philadelphia, hired by Maine Anti-Slavery
Society to lecture
...................................throughout New
England and Lower Canada; publishes Poems on Miscellaneous
...................................Subjects
......................Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods
1855...............Florence Nightingale introduces hygienic standards into military
hospitals during the
....................................Crimean War
......................Roger Fenton produces 360 photos of the Crimean War; 1st
systematic attempt to
...............................photo-document war
......................James Renwick's red castle is completed on the Washington
Mall to house the Smithsonian
....................................Institution
......................US Congress decides to rebuild a larger dome for the US Capitol, made of cast iron;
....................................construction will take place through 1865
......................Walt Whitman, 1st edition of Leaves of Grass;
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The
....................................Song of
Hiawatha
1856................Massacre of Potawatomie Creek, KS, slavers murdered by free-staters
.......................City of Charleston, SC almost entirely destroyed in massive
fire
.......................Neanderthal skull found in Germany
.......................Big Ben, bell at British Parliament, cast
.......................Herman Melville, Piazza Tales
1857................James Buchanan inaugurated 15th US President; only unmarried
Pres.; presumed to be
...................................homosexual by
modern scholars
.......................Dred Scott v. Sanford: African Americans declared not
to be US citizens, and those living
...................................in free states
or territories are still the property of owners. Decision invalidates the
...................................Missouri Compromise
and sharpens national debate over slavery
.......................Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians) founded in NY
.......................Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal; Gustave
Flaubert, Madame Bovary
1858................MN admitted as 32nd state
.......................Abraham Lincoln runs for US Senate; his nomination speech
in Springfield IL gains him
..................................a national audience
when he states "a house divided against itself cannot stand"
.......................Trans-Atlantic cable completed
.......................1st nonstop stage coach service from St. Louis to Los
Angeles (a 20-day trip)
.......................Ottawa becomes capital of Canada
.......................S.S. Great Eastern launched, largest ship of
her time
.......................Central Park in NYC, designed by Olmsted and Vaux, completed;
1st great urban park in US
.......................New York Symphony Orchestra gives 1st public concert
.......................Lionel de Rothschild becomes 1st Jewish member of British
Parliament
.......................Virgin Mary appears to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes,
France
........................Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles
Standish
1859................John Brown leads raid on Harper's Ferry, VA; briefly occupying
a Federal arsenal with 21
..................................followers; 10
killed; Brown captured, tried for treason and hanged
.......................OR admitted as 33rd state
.......................KS admitted as 34th state
.......................Last slave ship to US, Clothilde, arrives in
AL
.......................Pike's Peak Gold Rush: gold discovered in CO
.......................Comstock Lode: silver discovered in NV
.......................1st oil well drilled at Titusville, PA
.......................Invention of the steamroller
.......................Frenchman Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a
tightrope
.......................1st western sightings of gorillas in Gabon by hunter Paul Du Chaillu
.......................NY Congressionman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton
Key (nephew of Francis Scott Key).
................................. At his trail,
Sickles becomes 1st person to claim temporary insanity, based on the fact
................................. that his wife
had been having an affair with Key. He is acquitted and later becomes a
................................. Union General
in the Civil War
.......................Thomas Green Bethune (aka "Blind Tom") is 1st
African American musician to play at White
...................................House
(for Pres. Buchanan)
.......................Frances Harper becomes 1st African-American woman to
publish a short story,
..................................entitled “"The
Two Offers"
.......................Harriet E. Adams Wilson, Our Nig; Charles Dickins,
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles
..................................Darwin, Origin
of the Species
1860................Abraham Lincoln elected US President; South Carolina secedes
frm the Union
.......................Pony Express service begins: 119 stations approx. 12
miles apart connect St. Louis and
..................................Sacramento
.......................Severe drought leads to an exodus of 30,000 settlers
from KS
.......................After a fire burns a tenement house on Elm Street, killing
30, the New York Times begins a
...................................massive
campaign for better safety measures, resulting in an 1860 law that every
...................................apartment
building of 9 or more units must have a fireproof stair tower or external fire
...................................escapes
.......................1st horse-drawn tram
.......................1st aerial photographs, of Boston, taken by James Wallace
Black from a hot-air balloon
.......................1st recorded sound: Edouard-Leon Scott creates phonautograms, in which sound is embedded on
...................................paper covered with soot, in Paris
.......................American inventor Christopher Sholes devises primitive
typewriter
.......................Frances Harper marries Fenton Harper
.......................Statue of George Washington erected in Washington Circle, DC
.......................Jasper Cropsey, Autumn--on the Hudson River
.......................George Eliot, Mill on the Floss
(Click here for Part 2: 1861 to the present)