Manifest Destiny (1841-1854) * Between 1841 and 1854 Americans spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific displacing hundreds of native peoples in their wake. They felt that as the people who had inherited a firm belief in God and the means to conquer a continent, they had the right to the new lands they had acquired.*

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1844-1848 • James K. Polk elected

1845 • United States annexes Texas

1846 • Oregon boundary with Canada at the 49th parallel • Wilmot Proviso passes House of                    Representatives

1846-1848 • Mexican War

1846-1847 • Mormon migration to Utah

1848 • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo • Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention • Oneida                         Community established • Free Soil party organized • Karl Marx communist Manifesto •                     Mexican cession

1848-1852 • Zachary Taylor elected

1849 • California gold rush

1850 • Compromise of 1850, including • Fugitive Slave Law

1851 • Sioux give land to the United States

1852-1856 • Franklin Pierce elected

1853 • Gadsden Purchase

1854 • Ostend Manifesto • Kansas-Nebraska Act • Republican Party formed 

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Disunity and Civil War (1854-1865) * Since the first colonial days the differences between the north and the south had been evident. As time passed the differences began to cause conflicts that by 1854 had split the nation in half. A bloody war of idealism ensued leaving nearly 600,000 Americans dead.*

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1854 • Commodore Perry opens Japan • Ostend Manifesto • Kansas-Nebraska Act • Republican                 Party forms

1856 • William Walker becomes president of Nicaragua • May – John Brown attacks Pottawatomie             Creek • May 22 – Preston S. Brooks attacks Charles Sumner • 1856-1860 – Civil war in                 “Bleeding Kansas” • 1856-1869 – James Buchanan elected

1857 • Panic of 1857 • Tariff of 1857 • Kansas applies for statehood • March 6 –Dred Scott                     decision • Lecompton Constitution rejected

1858 • Cyrus Field lays first transatlantic cable • August-October – Lincoln - Douglas debates

1859 • John Brown raids Harper’s Ferry • Petroleum discovered in Pennsylvania

1860 • Pony Express established • Homestead Act passes, but vetoed by Buchanan • December –               South Carolina secedes • Crittenden Compromise fails • 1860-1864 – Abraham Lincoln                   elected 1861-1865 • Civil War

1861 • First transcontinental telegraph • Morrill Tariff Act • February – Confederate States of America              created • April 12 – bombing of Fort Sumter • April 15 – Lincoln calls for 75,000 militiamen             • Trent affair • Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus • July 21 -- First Battle of Bull Run

1862 • Homestead Act • Confederacy conscription • Grant takes Fort Henry and Fort Donelson •                  Battle of Shiloh • Spring -- Northern army takes New Orleans • McClellan’s Peninsula                        Campaign • June 26-July 2 -- Seven Days’ Battle • August 29-30 -- Second Battle of Bull Run •            Naval battle of the Merrimack (the Virginia) and the Monitor • September 17 -- Battle of                       Antietam • September 23 -- Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation • December 13 -- Battle of            Fredericksburg • 1862-1864 – Alabama raids Northern shipping

1863 • January 1 -- Emancipation Proclamation • Archduke Maximilian becomes emperor of Mexico             City • Union conscription • New York draft riots • National Banking System authorized • Battle            of Chancellorsville • July 1-3 -- Battle of Gettysburg • July 4 -- Fall of Vicksburg • Fall of Port                  Hudson

1864 • Alabama sunk by Union warship • Sherman’s march through Georgia • Grant’s Wilderness               Campaign • June 3 -- Battle of Cold Harbor • 1864-1868 – Abraham Lincoln re-elected
1865 • Hampton Roads Conference • April -- Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox • April 14 --                 Lincoln assassinated • Andrew Johnson takes over presidency • 13th amendment adopted 

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Reconstruction (1865-1877) * The Reconstruction era was a time for the North and South to reunite and find peace. The South needed to be rebuilt and the emancipated slaves faced decades of racism.*

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1863 • Lincoln announces “10 percent” plan

1864 • Lincoln vetoes Wade-Davis Bill • 1864-1868 – Abraham Lincoln re-elected

1865 • Johnson proclaims presidential Reconstruction • Congress refuses to seat Southern congressmen           • Freedmen’s Bureau established • Southern states pass Black Codes

1866 • Congress passes Civil Rights Bill over Johnson’s veto • Congress passes 14th Amendment •                Johnson-backed candidates lose congressional election • Ex parte Milligan • Ku Klux Klan                  founded 1867 • Military Reconstruction Act • Tenure of Office Act • United States buys Alaska             from Russia 

1868 • Johnson impeached and acquitted • Johnson pardons Confederate leaders • 1868-1872 –             Ulysses S. Grant elected

1870 • Congress passes 15th Amendment

1870-71 • Force Acts

1872 • Freedmen’s Bureau ended • 1872-1876 – Ulysses S. Grant reelected

1876 • 1876-1880 – Rutherford B. Hayes elected

1877 • Compromise of 1877 • Military Reconstruction ends Events without dates: • Amnesty Act •               Posse Comitatus Act 

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Gilded Age and Populists (1869-1900) * This post-Civil War era was a time when everything looked coated in chocolate and gold, but underneath it was just a piece of rotten banana. It was also the beginning of more radical political groups.*

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1845 • Idea of "Manifest Destiny" appears • Texas joins the Union as the twenty-eight state.

1846 • 1846-1848 – Mexican-American War

1848 • Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ends war with Mexico • 1848-1852 – Zachary Taylor elected 1852 • 1852-1856 – Franklin Pierce elected

1856 • 1856-1860 – James Buchanan elected

1860 • 1860-1864 – Abraham Lincoln elected

1862 • Homestead Act 1864 • 1864-1868 – Abraham Lincoln reelected

1865 • Chicago opens its Union stockyards 1868 • 1868-1872 – Ulysses S. Grant elected

1869 • First Transcontinental Railroad is completed.
1869 • Riots against the Chinese take place in San Francisco.

1870 • Standard Oil Company of Ohio is incorporated in Cleveland

1871 • William "Boss" Tweed is exposed • Race riots erupt in Los Angeles against the Chinese

1872 • Credit Mobilier scandal • 1872-1874 – Buffalo are hunted to near extinction • 1872-1876             – Ulysses S. Grant reelected

1873 • Timber Culture Act • Panic of 1873 • Indian Wars with the Modoc Indians of Oregon

1874 • Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire

1875 • Tariff Act of 1875 • Whiskey Ring Scandal is exposed

1876 • National League baseball plays its first official game • May -- The Centennial Exposition is                  opened • Battle of Little Bighorn • 1876-1880 – Rutherford B. Hayes elected

1877 • Compromise of 1877 • Desert Land Act • Great railroad Strike 

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