Events in History Relating to USA
June 9, 1534
Jacques Cartier is the first European to discover the Saint Lawrence River.
May 8, 1541
Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.
September 28, 1542
Navigator João Rodrigues Cabrilho of Portugal arrives at what is now San Diego, California, United States.
August 28, 1565
St. Augustine, Florida, is established. It is the oldest surviving European settlement in the United States.
March 25, 1584
Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.
June 19, 1586
English colonists leave Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in America.
August 18, 1587
Virginia Dare, granddaughter of governor John White of the Colony of Roanoke, becomes the first English child born in the Americas.
December 20, 1606
The Virginia Company loads three ships with settlers and sets sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
April 26, 1607
English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
May 14, 1607
Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.
September 13, 1609
Henry Hudson reached the river that would later be named after him – the Hudson River.
April 5, 1614
In Virginia, Native American Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe.
September 6, 1620
The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)
November 9, 1620
Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sight land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
November 21, 1620
Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact (November 11, O.S.).
December 18, 1620
The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts with 102 Pilgrims on board.
December 21, 1620
Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
December 26, 1620
Pilgrim Fathers land at what becomes New Plymouth in Massachusetts.
March 16, 1621
Samoset, a Mohegan, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."
March 22, 1621
The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
April 5, 1621
The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to Great Britain.
March 22, 1622
Jamestown massacre: Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony's population.
September 6, 1628
Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
March 4, 1629
Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.
March 22, 1630
Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.
May 18, 1631
In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
April 23, 1635
The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
October 9, 1635
Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.
August 18, 1636
The Covenant of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts is first signed.
October 28, 1636
A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes the first college in what would become the United States, today known as Harvard University.
December 13, 1636
The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.
May 26, 1637
Pequot War: A combined Protestant and Mohegan force under Captain John Mason attacks a Pequot village in Connecticut, massacring approximately 500 Native Americans.
March 22, 1638
Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.
March 29, 1638
Swedish colonists establish the first settlement in Delaware, naming it New Sweden.
January 14, 1639
The "Fundamental Orders", the first written constitution that created a government, is adopted in Connecticut.
March 1, 1642
Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine) becomes the first incorporated city in the USA.
May 26, 1647
Alse Young becomes the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut.
June 9, 1650
The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.
May 18, 1652
Rhode Island passes the first law in North America making slavery illegal.
February 2, 1653
New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
March 8, 1655
John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in what will be the United States.
October 14, 1656
Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The marriage of church-and-state in Puritanism makes them regard the ritual-free Quakers as spiritually apostate and politically subversive.
June 1, 1660
Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
March 18, 1673
John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.
May 17, 1673
Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
November 2, 1675
A combined attack by the Plymouth, Rhode Island, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies attacks the Great Swamp Fort, owned by the Narragansetts during King Philip's War.
September 19, 1676
Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon's Rebellion.
May 29, 1677
Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Natives.
April 9, 1682
Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims it for France and names it Louisiana.
June 23, 1683
William Penn signs friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
October 6, 1683
William Penn brings 13 German immigrant families to the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first immigration of German people to America.
February 18, 1685
Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
March 19, 1687
Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, is murdered by his own men.
February 3, 1690
The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.
September 25, 1690
Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper to appear in the Americas, is published for the first and only time.
February 8, 1692
A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony suggests that two girls in the family of the village minister may be suffering from bewitchment, leading to the Salem witch trials.
March 1, 1692
Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.
June 2, 1692
Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.
June 10, 1692
Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries".
July 19, 1692
Salem Witch Trials: Five women are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
September 19, 1692
Giles Corey is pressed to death after refusing to plead in the Salem witch trials.
October 12, 1692
The Salem Witch Trials are ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.
February 8, 1693
The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.
October 23, 1694
American colonial forces, led by Sir William Phipps, fail to seize Quebec.
December 7, 1696
Connecticut Route 108, third oldest highway in Connecticut laid out to Trumbull.
October 9, 1701
The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
April 24, 1704
The first regular newspaper in the United States, the News-Letter, is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
May 7, 1718
The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.
November 28, 1729
Natchez Indians massacre 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern-day Natchez, Mississippi.
March 24, 1731
Naturalization of Hieronimus de Salis Parliamentary Act is passed.
February 12, 1733
Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).
August 5, 1735
Freedom of the press: New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he published was true.
September 20, 1737
Runner Edward Marshall completes his journey in the Walking Purchase forcing the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony.
September 9, 1739
Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in Britains mainland North American colonies prior to the American Revolution, erupts near Charleston, South Carolina.
October 22, 1746
The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
January 3, 1749
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
November 11, 1750
The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, is formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It is the first college fraternity.
May 1, 1751
The first cricket match is played in America.
February 11, 1752
Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, opens.
January 28, 1754
Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity.*1760 – Pownal, Vermont is created by Benning Wentworth as one of the New Hampshire Grants.
May 21, 1758
Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War.
January 11, 1759
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.
May 31, 1759
The Province of Pennsylvania bans all theater productions.
March 20, 1760
The "Great Fire" of Boston, Massachusetts destroys 349 buildings.
June 2, 1763
Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.
November 10, 1766
The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).
October 18, 1767
Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.
June 21, 1768
James Otis, Jr. offends the King and parliament in a speech to the Massachusetts General Court.
November 5, 1768
Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the purpose of which is to adjust the boundary line between Indian lands and white settlements set forth in the Proclamation of 1763 in the Thirteen Colonies.
December 13, 1769
Dartmouth College is founded by the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, with a Royal Charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal Governor John Wentworth.
June 3, 1770
Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo is founded in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
September 1, 1772
Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa founded in San Luis Obispo, California.
January 12, 1773
The first public Colonial American museum opens in Charleston, South Carolina.
September 11, 1773
The Public Advertiser publishes a satirical essay titled Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One, which is written by Benjamin Franklin.
October 12, 1773
America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia
September 5, 1774
First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
October 26, 1774
The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
March 8, 1775
Thomas Paine's "African Slavery in America," the first article in the U.S. calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery is published.
April 14, 1775
The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
July 26, 1775
The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress.
October 13, 1775
The United States Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy (later renamed the United States Navy).
October 26, 1775
King George III went before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution.
November 7, 1775
John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters in order to fight with Murray and the British.
November 10, 1775
The United States Marine Corps is founded at Tun Tavern in Philidelphia by Samuel Nicholas.
December 3, 1775
The USS Alfred became the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones.
December 5, 1775
At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
January 24, 1776
Henry Knox arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts with the artillery that he has transported from Fort Ticonderoga.
March 4, 1776
The American War of Independence: The Americans capture Dorchester Heights dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts.
April 7, 1776
Captain John Barry and the USS Lexington captures the Edward.
June 7, 1776
Richard Henry Lee presents the "Lee Resolution" to the Continental Congress. The motion is seconded by John Adams and leads to the United States Declaration of Independence.
June 11, 1776
The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
September 9, 1776
The Continental Congress officially names their new union of sovereign states the United States.
September 11, 1776
British-American peace conference on Staten Island fails to stop nascent American Revolution.
October 26, 1776
Benjamin Franklin departed from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.
December 5, 1776
In the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia, students from the College of William and Mary meet for the first time founding Phi Beta Kappa, the first scholastic fraternity in the United States.
December 7, 1776
Marquis de Lafayette attempts to enter the American military as a major general.
December 19, 1776
Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis.
December 25, 1776
George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River to attack the Kingdom of Great Britain's Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey.
May 16, 1777
Lachlan McIntosh and Button Gwinnett shoot each other during a duel near Savannah, Georgia. Gwinnett, a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence, dies three days later.
June 14, 1777
The Stars and Stripes is adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States.
September 3, 1777
Cooch's Bridge – Skirmish of American Revolutionary war in New Castle County, Delaware where the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time.
September 19, 1777
First Battle of Saratoga/Battle of Freeman's Farm/Battle of Bemis Heights.
September 26, 1777
British troops occupy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution.
October 13, 1777
his defeat on October 7, 1777, General John Burgoyne's Army at The Battles of Saratoga become surrounded by superior numbers, setting the stage for its surrender — which feat of arms inspires the Kingdom of France to enter the American Revolutionary War against the British.
November 17, 1777
Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.
November 29, 1777
San Jose, California, is founded as el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.
February 5, 1778
South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
February 14, 1778
The United States Flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
March 4, 1778
The Continental Congress votes to ratify both the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance with France. The two treaties are the first entered into by the United States government.
September 17, 1778
The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware Indians).
November 11, 1778
Cherry Valley Massacre: an attack by Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces on a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers.
October 16, 1780
Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.
November 5, 1780
French-American forces under Colonel LaBalme are defeated by Miami Chief Little Turtle.
January 1, 1781
1,500 soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne's command rebel against the Continental Army's winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey as part of the Pennsylvania (Continentals; Regiment) Mutiny of 1781.
March 1, 1781
The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation.
September 28, 1781
American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War.
October 16, 1781
George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.
October 17, 1781
General Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the American revolutionists at Yorktown, Virginia.
January 7, 1782
The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens.
January 15, 1782
Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.
March 8, 1782
Gnadenhütten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians.
April 19, 1782
John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first American embassy.
June 20, 1782
The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.
March 15, 1783
In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea is successful and the threatened coup d'etat never takes place.
April 15, 1783
Preliminary articles of peace ending Revolutionary War ratified.
April 18, 1783
Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began.
May 26, 1783
A Great Jubilee Day is held in Trumbull, Connecticut to celebrate the end of the American Revolution.
November 2, 1783
In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, US General George Washington gives his "Farewell Address to the Army".
December 23, 1783
George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
January 27, 1785
The University of Georgia is founded, the first public university in the United States.
November 7, 1786
The oldest musical organization in the United States is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society.
January 25, 1787
American Daniel Shays leads rebellion to seize Federal arsenal to protest debtor's prisons.
February 28, 1787
The charter establishing the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh is granted.
June 20, 1787
Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the United States.
August 6, 1787
Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention.
September 17, 1787
The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
September 28, 1787
The newly completed United States Constitution is voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the state legislatures for approval.
December 7, 1787
Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the US Constitution.
December 12, 1787
Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the United States Constitution five days after Delaware became the first.
December 18, 1787
New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
January 2, 1788
Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
January 9, 1788
Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the United States.
February 6, 1788
Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
April 7, 1788
American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory arrive at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and opening the westward expansion of the new country.
April 28, 1788
Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
June 25, 1788
Virginia becomes the 10th state to ratify the United States Constitution.
February 4, 1789
George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
June 8, 1789
James Madison introduces 12 proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the United States House of Representatives; 10 of them are ratified by the state legislatures and become the Bill of Rights
June 14, 1789
Whiskey distilled from maize is first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig. It is named Bourbon because Rev Craig lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.
September 11, 1789
Alexander Hamilton is appointed as the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.
September 15, 1789
The United States Department of State is established (formerly known as Department of Foreign Affairs).
September 24, 1789
The office of the Attorney General of the United States of America, and the United States Post Office Department, are established.
September 25, 1789
The U.S. Congress passes twelve amendments to the United States Constitution: the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights. Only the Bill of Rights is ratified at the time, while the other two are proposed by James Madison but not ratified. In 1992, the Congressional Compensation Amendment is ratified as the 27th amendment to the Constitution.
September 26, 1789
Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood is appointed the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph is appointed the first United States Attorney General.
September 29, 1789
The U.S. War Department first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
October 2, 1789
George Washington sends the proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.
October 19, 1789
Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
November 20, 1789
New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
November 21, 1789
North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.
November 26, 1789
A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
December 11, 1789
The University of North Carolina is chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly.
February 11, 1790
Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.
May 29, 1790
Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state.
May 31, 1790
Alferez Manuel Quimper explores the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
May 31, 1790
The United States enacts its first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790.
October 22, 1790
Miami warriors under Chief Little Turtle defeat United States troops under General Josiah Harmar at the site of present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the Northwest Indian War.
January 2, 1791
Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.
September 9, 1791
Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, is named after President George Washington.
November 4, 1791
The Western Confederacy of American Indians win a major victory over the United States in the Battle of the Wabash.
December 15, 1791
The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
February 4, 1792
George Washington is unanimously elected to a second term as President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
February 20, 1792
The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.
April 2, 1792
The Coinage Act is passed establishing the United States Mint.
April 5, 1792
U.S. President George Washington exercises his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power is used in the United States.
May 11, 1792
Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River.
June 1, 1792
Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.
June 4, 1792
Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
September 11, 1792
The Hope Diamond is stolen along with other crown jewels when six men break into the house used to store the jewels.
October 13, 1792
In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.
January 9, 1793
Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.
February 25, 1793
George Washington holds the first Cabinet meeting as President of the United States.
September 18, 1793
The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington.
October 12, 1793
The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina
January 11, 1794
Robert Forsythe, a U.S. Marshal is killed in Augusta, Georgia when trying to serve court papers, the first US marshal to die while carrying out his duties.
March 4, 1794
The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.
March 27, 1794
The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
June 30, 1794
Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.
February 7, 1795
The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
April 13, 1796
The first elephant ever seen in the United States arrives from India.
June 1, 1796
Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.
September 19, 1796
George Washington's farewell address is printed across America as an open letter to the public.
February 25, 1797
Colonel William Tate and his force of 1000-1500 soldiers surrender after the Last Invasion of Britain.
March 4, 1797
In the first ever peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in modern times, John Adams is sworn in as President of the United States, succeeding George Washington.
October 21, 1797
In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
April 7, 1798
The Mississippi Territory is organized from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina and is later twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain.
July 11, 1798
The United States Marine Corps is re-established; they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.
March 29, 1799
New York passes a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state.
April 24, 1800
The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 USD to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".
June 3, 1800
U.S. President John Adams takes up residence in Washington, D.C. (in a tavern because the White House was not yet completed).
August 30, 1800
Gabriel Prosser leads a slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia
November 1, 1800
US President John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).
November 17, 1800
The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.
January 20, 1801
John Marshall is appointed the Chief Justice of the United States.
February 4, 1801
John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
February 17, 1801
An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
February 27, 1801
Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
May 10, 1801
First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America.
March 16, 1802
The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.
May 3, 1802
Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
November 1, 1802
Delegates meet at Chillicothe, Ohio to form a state constitutional convention.
February 14, 1803
Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.
April 30, 1803
Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
March 10, 1804
Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.
May 14, 1804
The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
June 15, 1804
New Hampshire approves the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifying the document.
July 12, 1804
Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot in a duel.
September 25, 1804
The Teton Sioux (a subdivision of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a toll for moving further upriver.
November 30, 1804
The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase.
March 1, 1805
Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted at the end of his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.
April 7, 1805
Lewis and Clark Expedition: The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandan tribe and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River.
April 26, 1805
United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon.
April 27, 1805
First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn).
June 10, 1805
First Barbary War: Yussif Karamanli signs a treaty ending hostilities with the United States.
June 30, 1805
The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory.
January 30, 1806
The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened.
March 29, 1806
Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.
May 30, 1806
Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.
September 23, 1806
Lewis and Clark return to St. Louis, after exploring the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
November 15, 1806
Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it is later named Pikes Peak).
March 2, 1807
The U.S. Congress passes an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States... from any foreign kingdom, place, or country."
December 22, 1807
The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.
January 1, 1808
The importation of slaves into the United States is banned.
April 6, 1808
John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company.
February 11, 1809
Robert Fulton files a patent for improvements to steamboat navigation
May 5, 1809
Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
October 11, 1809
Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.
January 8, 1811
An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslandes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.
October 1, 1811
The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orléans, Louisiana.
November 7, 1811
Tecumseh's War: The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana, United States.
December 26, 1811
A theater fire in Richmond, Virginia kills the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and the president of the First National Bank of Virginia Abraham B. Venable.
February 2, 1812
Russia establishes a fur trading colony at Fort Ross, California.
February 11, 1812
Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry "gerrymanders" for the first time.
April 30, 1812
The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
June 4, 1812
Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.
December 29, 1812
The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three hour battle.
June 1, 1813
James Lawrence, the mortally-wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, gives his final order: "Don't give up the ship!"
September 11, 1813
British troops arrive in Mount Vernon and prepare to march to Washington D.C. to invade it.(The War of 1812)
August 24, 1814
British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House and several other buildings.
September 11, 1814
The climax of the Battle of Plattsburgh, a major United States victory in the War of 1812.
December 27, 1814
Destruction of schooner Carolina, the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson's make-shift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
February 6, 1815
New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.
April 10, 1816
The United States Government approves the creation of the Second Bank of the United States.
May 15, 1817
Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
June 5, 1817
The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.
April 4, 1818
The United States Congress adopts the flag of the United States with 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (then 20).
February 17, 1819
The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise.
March 6, 1820
The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.
September 26, 1820
Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson proved tomatoes weren't poisonous by eating several on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey.
November 17, 1820
Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula is later named after him).
November 18, 1820
Capt. Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to sight the continent of Antarctica.
November 20, 1820
An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story).
July 10, 1821
The United States takes possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.
December 2, 1823
Monroe Doctrine: US President James Monroe delivers a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts.
March 11, 1824
The United States War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
December 1, 1824
U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate had received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
January 27, 1825
The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears".
February 4, 1825
The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal.
February 9, 1825
After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
February 12, 1825
The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government, and migrate west.
October 26, 1825
The Erie Canal opens – passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.
November 4, 1825
The Erie Canal is completed with Governor DeWitt Clinton performing the Wedding of The Waters ceremony in New York Harbour.
November 26, 1825
At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society, the first college social fraternity.
October 7, 1826
Granite Railway (first chartered railway in the U.S.) begins operations.
February 28, 1827
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
September 21, 1827
Joseph Smith, Jr. is reportedly visited by the angel Moroni, who gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Smith has translated into The Book of Mormon.
November 17, 1827
The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, is founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
April 14, 1828
Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
May 19, 1828
U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States.
December 19, 1828
Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun pens the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828.
May 24, 1830
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.
May 24, 1830
The first revenue trains in the United States begin service on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Baltimore, Maryland and Ellicott's Mills, Maryland.
February 24, 1831
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.
August 22, 1831
Nat Turner's slave rebellion commences just after midnight in Southampton, Virginia, leading to the deaths of more than 50 whites and several hundred African Americans who are killed in retaliation for the uprising.
September 15, 1831
The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
October 30, 1831
In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.
November 5, 1831
Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.
November 11, 1831
In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.
December 5, 1831
Former US President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the House of Representatives.
March 24, 1832
In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr..
April 8, 1832
Black Hawk War: Around three-hundred United States 6th Infantry troops leave St. Louis, Missouri to fight the Sauk Native Americans.
December 28, 1832
John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.
June 6, 1833
U.S. President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train.
January 29, 1834
US President Andrew Jackson orders first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.
March 28, 1834
The United States Senate censures President Andrew Jackson for his actions in de-funding the Second Bank of the United States.
October 14, 1834
In Philadelphia, Whigs and Democrats stage a gun, stone and brick battle for control of a Moyamensing Township election, resulting in one death, several injuries, and the burning down of a block of buildings.
November 4, 1834
The Delta Upsilon Fraternity is established at Williams College Massachusetts.
January 30, 1835
In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen.
May 6, 1835
James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
June 2, 1835
P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.
October 2, 1835
The Texas Revolution begins with the Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
December 19, 1835
The first issue of The Blade newspaper is published in Toledo, Ohio.
December 20, 1835
First signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Goliad, Texas.
December 28, 1835
Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army.
December 29, 1835
The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
March 1, 1836
A convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convenes in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to deliberate independence from Mexico.
March 5, 1836
Samuel Colt makes the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.
March 27, 1836
Kirtland Temple in Ohio is dedicated in an 8 hour long service led by Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon.
May 14, 1836
The Treaties of Velasco are signed in Velasco, Texas.
May 16, 1836
Edgar Allan Poe marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia.
September 1, 1836
Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.
September 5, 1836
Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
October 22, 1836
Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
February 8, 1837
Richard Johnson becomes the first Vice President of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
June 5, 1837
Houston, Texas is incorporated by the Republic of Texas.
October 9, 1837
A meeting at the U.S. Naval Academy establishes the U.S. Naval Institute.
November 7, 1837
In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.
November 8, 1837
Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later becomes Mount Holyoke College.
December 25, 1837
Battle of Lake Okeechobee: United States forces defeat Seminole Native Americans.
January 8, 1838
Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
January 26, 1838
Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States
September 3, 1838
Dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a Free Black seaman, future abolitionist Frederick Douglass boards a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery.
October 27, 1838
Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated.
November 27, 1839
In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.
January 19, 1840
Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
June 20, 1840
Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph.
February 18, 1841
The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins and lasts until March 11.
March 9, 1841
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
April 4, 1841
William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and the one with the shortest term served.
February 21, 1842
John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
May 22, 1842
Farmers Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel discover Howe Caverns when they stumble upon a large hole in the ground.
August 9, 1842
Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.
May 22, 1843
Thousands of people and their cattle head west via wagon train from Independence, Missouri to what would later become the Oregon Territory. It is part of the Great Migration. They follow what is now known as the Oregon Trail.
January 15, 1844
University of Notre Dame receives its charter from the state of Indiana.
February 28, 1844
A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.
May 24, 1844
Samuel F. B. Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a Bible quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland.
June 15, 1844
Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.
June 22, 1844
North American fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon is founded at Yale University.
October 22, 1844
The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipated the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
January 29, 1845
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe is published in the New York Evening Mirror.
March 1, 1845
President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
March 3, 1845
For the first time the U.S. Congress passes legislation overriding a presidential veto.
March 4, 1845
James Knox Polk is inaugurated as the 11th President of the United States.
September 23, 1845
The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York.
October 10, 1845
In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors.
October 13, 1845
A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution, that if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.
December 2, 1845
Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
December 27, 1845
Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
January 31, 1846
After the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and Kilbourntown unified as the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
February 19, 1846
In Austin, Texas the newly-formed Texas state government is officially installed. The Republic of Texas government officially transfers power to the State of Texas government following Texas' annexation by the United States.
April 14, 1846
The Donner Party of pioneers departs Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.
April 25, 1846
Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican-American War.
May 1, 1846
The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicate the Nauvoo Temple.
June 14, 1846
Bear Flag Revolt begins – Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.
June 15, 1846
The Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
June 19, 1846
The first baseball game under recognizable modern rules is played in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States.
August 14, 1846
The Cape Girardeau meteorite, a 2.3 kg chondrite-type meteorite strikes near the town of Cape Girardeau in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri.
September 25, 1846
U.S. forces led by Zachary Taylor capture the Mexican city of Monterrey.
January 4, 1847
Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
January 16, 1847
John C. Fremont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
March 1, 1847
The state of Michigan formally abolishes capital punishment.
April 25, 1847
The last survivors of the Donner Party are out of the wilderness.
May 7, 1847
The American Medical Association is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
September 6, 1847
Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.
September 11, 1847
Stephen Foster's well-known song, Oh! Susanna, is first performed at a saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
November 29, 1847
Whitman Massacre: Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians, causing the Cayuse War.
December 5, 1847
Jefferson Davis is elected to the US senate, his first political post.
January 24, 1848
California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.
January 31, 1848
John C. Fremont court-martialed on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders.
March 10, 1848
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican-American War.
April 18, 1848
American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico.
July 19, 1848
Women's rights: The two day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York and the "Bloomers" are introduced at the feminist convention.
August 19, 1848
California Gold Rush: the New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States of the gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).
September 13, 1848
Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage incredibly survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.
November 1, 1848
In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opens.
December 5, 1848
California Gold Rush: In a message before the U.S. Congress, US President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California.
December 26, 1848
The Phi Delta Theta fraternity is founded at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
January 23, 1849
Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.
March 3, 1849
The United States Department of the Interior is established.
March 3, 1849
The U.S. Congress passes the Gold Coinage Act allowing the minting of gold coins.
May 17, 1849
A fire threatens to burn St. Louis, Missouri to the ground.
January 29, 1850
Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
March 7, 1850
Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
March 18, 1850
American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
June 3, 1850
The traditional founding date of Kansas City, Missouri. This was the date on which it was first incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "City of Kansas".
July 10, 1850
Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States upon the death of President Zachary Taylor, 16 months into his term.
September 9, 1850
The Compromise of 1850 strips Texas of a third of its claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) in return for the U.S. federal government assuming $10 million of Texas's pre-annexation debt.
October 23, 1850
the first National Women's Rights Convention is begun in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States.
March 27, 1851
First reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans.
September 18, 1851
First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which would become The New York Times.
November 9, 1851
Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.
November 13, 1851
The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what would become Seattle, Washington.
February 16, 1852
Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established.
February 19, 1852
The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
March 20, 1852
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.
January 6, 1853
President-elect of the United States Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts.
December 30, 1853
Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
February 28, 1854
The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
March 31, 1854
Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
May 30, 1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law establishing the US territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
June 10, 1854
The first class of the United States Naval Academy students graduate.
October 1, 1854
The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
January 23, 1855
The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
February 14, 1855
Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
June 1, 1855
American adventurer William Walker conquers Nicaragua.
June 2, 1855
The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
October 23, 1855
Kansas Free State forces set up a competing government under their Topeka, Kansas, constitution, which outlaws slavery in the United States territory.
January 26, 1856
First Battle of Seattle. Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after all day battle with settlers.
February 18, 1856
The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
February 22, 1856
The Republican Party opens its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
April 10, 1856
The Theta Chi Fraternity is founded at Norwich University.
May 21, 1856
Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.
June 9, 1856
Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
March 6, 1857
Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case.
May 26, 1857
Dred Scott is emancipated by the Blow family, his original owners.
August 24, 1857
The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in U.S. history.
September 11, 1857
The Mountain Meadows Massacre: Mormon settlers and Paiutes massacre 120 pioneers at Mountain Meadows, Utah.
January 9, 1858
Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.
June 16, 1858
Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
March 21, 1859
Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 1st in US, incorporated
June 15, 1859
Pig War: Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty leads to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between U.S. and British/Canadian settlers.
June 30, 1859
French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
August 28, 1859
A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far afield as Japan.
September 17, 1859
Joshua A. Norton declares himself Emperor Norton I of the United States.
November 1, 1859
The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lit for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for about 19 miles (30 kilometers), in good conditions.
December 2, 1859
Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper's Ferry.
February 27, 1860
Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency.
April 3, 1860
The first successful United States Pony Express run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California begins.
April 14, 1860
The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
May 18, 1860
Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.
June 23, 1860
The United States Congress establishes the Government Printing Office.
September 7, 1860
Steamship Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 400 lives.
October 10, 1860
The original cornerstone of the University of the South is laid in Sewanee, Tennessee.
December 20, 1860
South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.
February 18, 1861
In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
February 23, 1861
President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
March 2, 1861
The Nevada Territory and Dakota Territory are organized as political divisions of the United States.
March 4, 1861
First national flag of the Confederate States of America (the 'Stars and Bars') is adopted.
March 4, 1861
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States.
March 16, 1861
Edward Clark becomes Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who was evicted from the office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.
April 27, 1861
President of the United States Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
October 23, 1861
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.
October 24, 1861
The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.
November 4, 1861
The University of Washington opens in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University.
December 21, 1861
Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
January 30, 1862
The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.
January 31, 1862
Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an eighteen inch telescope at Northwestern University.
February 1, 1862
Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is published for the first time in the Atlantic Monthly.
February 22, 1862
Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.
March 23, 1862
The First Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, marks the start of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Though a Confederate defeat, the engagement distracts Federal efforts to capture Richmond.
May 12, 1862
U.S. federal troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
May 15, 1862
President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture. It is later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.
June 19, 1862
The U.S. Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories, nullifying the Dred Scott Case.
September 4, 1862
Civil War Maryland Campaign General Lee takes the Army of Northern Virginia, and the war, into the North.
September 22, 1862
Slavery in the United States: a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released.
December 26, 1862
Four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover are the first female nurses on a U.S. Navy hospital ship.
December 26, 1862
The largest mass-hanging in U.S. history took place in Mankato, Minnesota, 38 Native Americans die.
January 1, 1863
The first claim under the Homestead Act is made by Daniel Freeman for a farm in Nebraska.
February 26, 1863
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the National Currency Act into law.
March 2, 1863
The U.S. Congress authorizes track width of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) for Union Pacific Railroad
March 4, 1863
The Idaho Territory is created as a political division of the United States.
March 19, 1863
The SS Georgiana, said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, is destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, medicines and merchandise then valued at over $1,000,000.
April 2, 1863
Richmond Bread Riot: Food shortages incite hundreds of angry women to riot in Richmond, Virginia and demand that the Confederate government release emergency supplies.
May 23, 1863
Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.
July 7, 1863
United States begins first military draft; exemptions cost $300.
August 21, 1863
Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by Confederate guerrillas Quantrill's Raiders in the Lawrence Massacre.
September 16, 1863
Robert College of Istanbul-Turkey, the first American educational institution outside the United States, is founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist.
February 19, 1864
Knights of Pythias are founded in Washington, D.C. by Justus H. Rathbone.
April 22, 1864
The United States Congress passes the Coinage Act, mandating that the inscription "In God We Trust" be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.
April 29, 1864
The Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
June 15, 1864
Arlington National Cemetery is established when 200 acres (0.81 km2) around Arlington Mansion (formerly owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee) are officially set aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
June 30, 1864
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation".
October 19, 1864
Battle of Cedar Creek – Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
October 19, 1864
Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
October 30, 1864
Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch".
December 1, 1864
In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
December 22, 1864
Savannah, Georgia falls to General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his "March to the Sea".
February 1, 1865
President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
February 8, 1865
In the U.S., Delaware voters reject the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and vote to continue the practice of slavery. (Delaware finally ratifies the amendment on February 12, 1901.)
February 18, 1865
Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.
March 3, 1865
The U.S. Congress authorizes the formation of the Freedmen's Bureau.
March 4, 1865
Third (and last) national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted.
April 11, 1865
President Abraham Lincoln makes his last public speech.
April 14, 1865
U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell.
April 17, 1865
Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
April 26, 1865
Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in Virginia.
May 5, 1865
In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio), the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
May 25, 1865
In Mobile, Alabama, 300 are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.
June 19, 1865
Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 13 other contiguous states as Juneteenth.
November 18, 1865
Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
December 6, 1865
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, banning slavery.
May 16, 1866
The U.S. Congress eliminates the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.
June 3, 1866
The Fenians are driven out of Fort Erie, Ontario, into the United States.
June 7, 1866
1,800 Fenian raiders are repelled back to the United States after they loot and plunder around Saint-Armand and Frelighsburg, Quebec.
July 25, 1866
The U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army (commonly called "5-star general"). Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.
January 8, 1867
African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
March 1, 1867
Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state; Lancaster, Nebraska is renamed Lincoln and becomes the state capital.
March 2, 1867
The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act
March 30, 1867
Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million, about 2 cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward. The media call this Seward's Folly.
April 9, 1867
Alaska purchase: Passing by a single vote, the United States Senate ratifies a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska.
June 15, 1867
Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode gold mine located in Montana.
August 28, 1867
The United States takes possession of the, at this point unoccupied, Midway Atoll.
October 18, 1867
United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
October 21, 1867
Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.
December 4, 1867
Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (better known today as the Grange).
December 28, 1867
United States claims Midway Atoll, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits.
February 24, 1868
The first parade to have floats is staged at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana.
February 24, 1868
Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.
March 5, 1868
A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
March 23, 1868
The University of California is founded in Oakland, California when the Organic Act is signed into law.
March 27, 1868
The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.
May 16, 1868
President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.
May 26, 1868
The impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson ends with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote.
May 30, 1868
Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time (By "Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic" John A. Logan's proclamation on May 5).
June 23, 1868
Christopher Latham Sholes receives a patent for Type-Writer.
October 7, 1868
Cornell University holds opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment is 412, the highest at any American university to that date.
December 25, 1868
U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.
May 10, 1869
The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah) with the golden spike.
May 15, 1869
Woman's suffrage: in New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman's Suffrage Association.
June 1, 1869
Thomas Edison receives a patent for his electric voting machine.
October 16, 1869
The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is discovered.
January 15, 1870
A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).
January 23, 1870
In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in the Marias Massacre.
January 27, 1870
The first women's fraternity, Kappa Alpha Theta, is formed at DePauw University.
February 3, 1870
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, granting voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
February 23, 1870
In the United States, post-Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
February 25, 1870
Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
March 30, 1870
Texas is readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.
June 19, 1870
After all of the Southern States are formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceases to exist.
June 26, 1870
The Christian holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.
July 1, 1870
The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.
September 6, 1870
Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
September 18, 1870
Old Faithful Geyser observed and named by Henry D. Washburn during the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition to Yellowstone
November 1, 1870
In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast.
December 12, 1870
Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the first black U.S. congressman.
March 22, 1871
In North Carolina, William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.
April 30, 1871
The Camp Grant Massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.
May 4, 1871
The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
May 22, 1871
The U.S. Army issued an order for abandonment of Fort Kearny in Nebraska.
November 17, 1871
The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
May 10, 1872
Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
May 22, 1872
Reconstruction: U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
November 5, 1872
Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.
November 7, 1872
The ship Marie Celeste sails from New York, eventually to be found deserted
December 9, 1872
In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.
January 17, 1873
A group of Modoc warriors defeat the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War.
March 1, 1873
E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York begins production of the first practical typewriter.
March 3, 1873
Censorship: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
March 13, 1873
David Swinson Maynard Founder of Seattle, Washington, United States dies
March 15, 1873
The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity is founded at Massachusetts Agricultural College.
May 20, 1873
Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
June 18, 1873
Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
July 21, 1873
At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West.
March 18, 1874
Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.
May 16, 1874
A flood on the Mill River in Massachusetts destroys much of four villages and kills 139 people.
November 7, 1874
A cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party.
November 25, 1874
The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party consisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873.
December 9, 1875
Massachusetts Rifle Association "America's Oldest Active Gun Club" is founded.
January 31, 1876
The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.
February 2, 1876
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
April 11, 1876
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is organized.
June 25, 1876
Battle of the Little Bighorn and the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
September 7, 1876
In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are surrounded by an angry mob and are nearly killed.
October 4, 1876
Texas A&M University opens as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas becomes Texas's first public institution of higher education in that state.
December 5, 1876
Brooklyn Theater Fire kills at least 278 people in Brooklyn, NY.
December 29, 1876
The Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster occurs, leaving 64 injured and 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.
January 8, 1877
Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
March 2, 1877
U.S. presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
March 3, 1877
Rutherford B. Hayes is privately inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (his public inauguration coming on March 5).
May 6, 1877
Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
June 15, 1877
Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
June 21, 1877
The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants, are hanged at the Schuylkill County and Carbon County, Pennsylvania prisons.
October 5, 1877
Chief Joseph surrenders his Nez Perce band to General Nelson A. Miles.
November 21, 1877
Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
January 28, 1878
Yale Daily News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the United States.
February 18, 1878
John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jessie Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
December 18, 1878
John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires is executed in Pennsylvania.
February 15, 1879
Women's rights: American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
July 1, 1879
Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.
October 21, 1879
Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13½ hours before burning out).
January 9, 1880
The Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow.
May 13, 1880
In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.
October 1, 1880
John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Band.
April 14, 1881
The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupts in El Paso, Texas.
April 16, 1881
In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.
May 21, 1881
The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton.
June 13, 1881
The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.
July 1, 1881
The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.
July 2, 1881
Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19.
September 19, 1881
President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2 shooting.
September 20, 1881
Chester A. Arthur is inaugurated as the 21st President of the United States following the assassination of James Garfield.
October 26, 1881
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place at Tombstone, Arizona.
November 29, 1881
The city of Spokan Falls (today Spokane, Washington) is officially incorporated as a city.
February 7, 1882
The last heavyweight boxing championship bare-knuckle fight takes place in Mississippi City, Mississippi.
May 6, 1882
The United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.
June 30, 1882
Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of President James Garfield.
September 30, 1882
The world's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States.
January 16, 1883
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is passed.
May 1, 1884
Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
October 6, 1884
The Naval War College of the United States Navy is founded in Newport, Rhode Island.
February 18, 1885
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time.
February 28, 1885
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York State as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)
March 3, 1885
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York.
May 2, 1885
Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.
September 2, 1885
Rock Springs massacre: In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers, killing 28, wounding 15, and forcing several hundred more out of town.
October 13, 1885
The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
March 29, 1886
Dr. John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia.
May 5, 1886
The Bay View Tragedy: A militia fires into a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing seven.
May 8, 1886
Pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that would later be named "Coca-Cola".
May 29, 1886
Chemist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, the ad appearing in the Atlanta Journal.
June 1, 1886
The railroads of the Southern United States convert 11,000 miles of track from a five foot rail gauge to standard gauge, beginning May 31.
June 2, 1886
U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.
October 28, 1886
In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
January 20, 1887
The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
January 28, 1887
In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes are reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.
February 2, 1887
In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
February 8, 1887
The Dawes Act authorized the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.
March 7, 1887
North Carolina State University is founded by the North Carolina General Assembly.
April 4, 1887
Argonia, Kansas elects Susanna M. Salter as the first female mayor in the United States.
June 8, 1887
Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his punch card calculator.
January 27, 1888
The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C..
March 11, 1888
The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400.
September 4, 1888
George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
October 9, 1888
The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.
October 17, 1888
Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
December 9, 1888
Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department.
December 18, 1888
Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Mesa Verde.
January 15, 1889
The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.
February 9, 1889
The United States Department of Agriculture is established as a Cabinet-level agency.
February 22, 1889
President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.
March 23, 1889
Land Run: President Benjamin Harrison opens Oklahoma to white settlement starting on April 22.
April 22, 1889
At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.
June 6, 1889
The Great Seattle Fire destroys the entirety of downtown Seattle, Washington.
October 2, 1889
In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.
November 2, 1889
North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
January 22, 1890
The United Mine Workers of America is founded in Columbus, Ohio.
June 1, 1890
The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to count census returns.
October 1, 1890
The Yosemite National Park and the Yellowstone National Park are established by the U.S. Congress.
October 11, 1890
In Washington, DC, the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.
December 29, 1890
United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota men, women, and children with 4 Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
September 11, 1891
The Jewish Colonization Association is established by Baron Maurice de Hirsch.
October 1, 1891
In the U.S. state of California, Stanford University opens its doors.
January 1, 1892
Ellis Island opens to begin processing immigrants into the United States.
April 19, 1892
Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
June 7, 1892
Benjamin Harrison becomes the first President of the United States to attend a baseball game.
October 12, 1892
The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited in unison by students in US public schools.
October 13, 1892
Edward Emerson Barnard discovers D/1892 T1, the first comet discovered by photographic means, on the night of October 13-14.
November 8, 1892
The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.
January 6, 1893
The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
February 24, 1893
The American University is chartered by an act of the Congress of the United States of America.
March 1, 1893
Nikola Tesla makes the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.
May 10, 1893
The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883.
June 13, 1893
Grover Cleveland undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; operation not revealed to US public until 1917, nine years after the president's death.
September 22, 1893
The first American-made automobile, built by the Duryea Brothers, is displayed.
November 7, 1893
Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote.
February 7, 1894
The Cripple Creek miner's strike, led by the Western Federation of Miners, begins in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
March 12, 1894
In Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA, Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
March 25, 1894
Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C.
April 14, 1894
Thomas Edison demonstrates the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.
April 30, 1894
Coxey's Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893.
May 1, 1894
Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
May 11, 1894
Pullman Strike: Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike in Illinois.
June 6, 1894
Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.
September 1, 1894
Great Hinckley Fire: A forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, kills more than 400 people.
April 8, 1895
The Supreme Court of the United States declares unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
October 4, 1895
The first U.S. Open Men's Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association is played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
November 2, 1895
The first gasoline-powered race in the United States. First prize: $2,000
November 5, 1895
George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
March 23, 1896
The Raines Law is passed by the New York State Legislature, restricting Sunday sale of alcohol to hotels.
May 18, 1896
The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate but equal is constitutional.
May 26, 1896
Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
June 28, 1896
An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania resulted in a massive cave-in that killed 58 miners.
November 1, 1896
A picture showing the unclad (bare) breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.
June 16, 1897
A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
July 25, 1897
Writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he will write his first successful stories.
September 1, 1897
The Boston subway opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
September 10, 1897
Lattimer Massacre – a sheriff's posse kills twenty unarmed immigrant miners in Pennsylvania, United States.
September 21, 1897
The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is published in the New York Sun.
June 17, 1898
The United States Navy Hospital Corps is established.
July 7, 1898
President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.
July 8, 1898
The shooting death of crime boss Soapy Smith releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.
January 3, 1899
The first known use of the word automobile, is seen in an editorial in The New York Times.
January 17, 1899
The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
February 13, 1899
Tallahassee, Florida records its coldest temperature of -2 degrees Fahrenheit.
February 14, 1899
Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
March 2, 1899
In the state of Washington, USA, Mount Rainier National Park is established.
September 13, 1899
Henry Bliss is the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
December 2, 1899
Philippine-American War: The Battle of Tirad Pass, termed "The Filipino Thermopylae", is fought.
January 8, 1900
President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
January 29, 1900
The American League is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with 8 founding teams.
February 3, 1900
Gubernatorial candidate William Goebel is assassinated in Frankfort, Kentucky.
March 14, 1900
The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.
April 30, 1900
Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
April 30, 1900
Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.
May 1, 1900
The Scofield mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
September 13, 1900
Filipino resistance fighters defeat a small American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, during the Philippine-American War.
September 17, 1900
Philippine-American War: Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeat Americans under Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham at Mabitac.
September 19, 1900
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid commit their first robbery together.
April 25, 1901
New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
May 1, 1901
The Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo, New York.
June 17, 1901
The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.
July 24, 1901
O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
September 2, 1901
Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
September 6, 1901
Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
September 14, 1901
President of the United States William McKinley dies after an assassination attempt on September 6, and is succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt.
October 12, 1901
President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House.
October 24, 1901
Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
October 29, 1901
In Amherst, Massachusetts nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
October 29, 1901
Capital punishment: Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of US President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.
December 3, 1901
US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking the Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
January 28, 1902
The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
April 13, 1902
James C. Penney opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
June 28, 1902
The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.
October 21, 1902
In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
January 18, 1903
President Theodore Roosevelt sends a radio message to King Edward VII: the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.
February 14, 1903
The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into Department of Commerce and Department of Labor).
March 14, 1903
The Hay-Herran Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate would later reject the treaty.
March 23, 1903
The Wright Brothers apply for a patent on their invention of one of the first successful airplanes.
September 11, 1903
The first race at The Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wisconsin is held. It is the oldest major speedway in the world.
September 27, 1903
Wreck of the Old 97, a train crash made famous by the song of the same name.
November 3, 1903
With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaims itself independent from Colombia. US President Theodore Roosevelt had wanted the United States to build the Panama Canal, but was not willing to pay what Colombia asked.
November 18, 1903
The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the United States exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
November 23, 1903
Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike.
December 14, 1903
The Wright Brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
March 5, 1904
Nikola Tesla, in Electrical World and Engineer, describes the process of the ball lightning formation.
April 8, 1904
Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
April 30, 1904
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri.
May 4, 1904
The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
May 5, 1904
Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
December 3, 1904
The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.
December 31, 1904
The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.
April 17, 1905
The Supreme Court of the United States decides Lochner v. New York which holds that the "right to free contract" is implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
May 15, 1905
Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded when 110 acres (0.4 km²), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.
October 5, 1905
Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908.
December 30, 1905
Former Governor Frank Steunenberg is assassinated near his home in Caldwell, Idaho.
January 8, 1906
A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, kills 20 people.
March 17, 1906
The Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
March 31, 1906
The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for amateur sports in the United States.
May 22, 1906
The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
June 8, 1906
Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
June 25, 1906
Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Thaw shoots and kills prominent architect Stanford White.
June 30, 1906
The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.
September 24, 1906
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation's first National Monument.
November 9, 1906
Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.
December 4, 1906
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity in the United States established for men of African descent, is founded at Cornell University.
January 23, 1907
Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.
April 17, 1907
The Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day.
April 24, 1907
Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, is opened.
August 17, 1907
Pike Place Market, the longest continuously-running public farmers market in the US, opened in Seattle.
October 22, 1907
Panic of 1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.
November 16, 1907
Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.
November 28, 1907
In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater.
December 6, 1907
A coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia kills 362 workers.
December 19, 1907
A group of 239 coal miners die during a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
January 15, 1908
The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African-American college women.
March 4, 1908
The Collinwood School Fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
March 23, 1908
American diplomat Durham Stevens is attacked by Korean assassins Jeon Myeong-un and Jang In-hwan, leading to his death in a hospital two days later.
April 8, 1908
Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.
May 10, 1908
Mother's Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, West Virginia.
July 6, 1908
Robert Peary sets sail for the Arctic on the expedition on which he later reaches the North Pole.
September 26, 1908
Ed Reulbach becomes the first and only pitcher to throw two shutouts in one day against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
September 27, 1908
The first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built at the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
October 1, 1908
Ford puts the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.
February 12, 1909
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
March 30, 1909
The Queensboro Bridge opens, linking Manhattan and Queens.
April 9, 1909
The U.S. Congress passes the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.
August 30, 1909
Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.
November 13, 1909
Collier's magazine accuses U.S. Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of questionable dealings in Alaskan coal fields.
November 26, 1909
Sigma Alpha Mu is founded in the City College of New York by 8 Jewish young men.
March 3, 1910
Rockefeller Foundation: J.D. Rockefeller Jr. announces his retirement from managing his businesses so that he can devote full time to being a philanthropist.
March 9, 1910
The Westmoreland County Coal Strike, involving 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, begins.
March 14, 1910
Lakeview Gusher, the largest U.S. oil well gusher near Bakersfield, California, vented to atmosphere.
March 17, 1910
Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912).
May 11, 1910
An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
May 16, 1910
The United States Congress authorizes the creation of the United States Bureau of Mines.
June 19, 1910
The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.
October 10, 1910
The Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity is established at Columbia University.
October 11, 1910
Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert-St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.
November 7, 1910
The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse.
November 10, 1910
The date of Thomas A. Davis' opening of the San Diego Army and Navy Academy, though the official founding date is November 23, 1910.
November 14, 1910
Aviator Eugene Ely performs the first take off from a ship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. He took off from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.
November 29, 1910
The first US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued to Ernest Sirrine.
January 30, 1911
The destroyer USS Terry (DD-25) makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.
March 4, 1911
Victor Berger (Wisconsin) becomes the first socialist congressman in U.S..
March 29, 1911
The M1911 .45 ACP pistol became the official U.S. Army side arm.
April 27, 1911
Following the resignation and death of William P. Frye, a compromise is reached to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
May 15, 1911
The United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up.
May 30, 1911
At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.
June 15, 1911
Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation (IBM) is incorporated.
August 29, 1911
Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
October 24, 1911
Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
November 3, 1911
Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.
November 11, 1911
Many cities in the U.S. Midwest broke their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through. (see The 11/11/11 cold wave).
February 14, 1912
In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.
March 1, 1912
Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.
March 12, 1912
The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States.
April 20, 1912
Opening day for baseball stadiums Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
June 4, 1912
Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.
August 14, 1912
United States Marines invade Nicaragua to support the U.S.-backed government installed there after José Santos Zelaya had resigned three years earlier.
September 25, 1912
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York, New York.
October 14, 1912
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivers his scheduled speech.
February 3, 1913
The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
March 21, 1913
Over 360 are killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio.
April 8, 1913
The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, becomes law.
May 14, 1913
New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.
July 10, 1913
Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
October 31, 1913
Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States.
November 9, 1913
The Great Lakes Storm of 1913, the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, destroys 19 ships and kills more than 250 people.
December 1, 1913
The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
December 21, 1913
Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
December 23, 1913
The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
January 5, 1914
The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
January 9, 1914
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., the first historically black intercollegiate greek-letter fraternity to be officially recognized at Howard University is founded.
March 20, 1914
In New Haven, Connecticut, the first international figure skating championship takes place.
September 1, 1914
The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.
September 26, 1914
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
November 23, 1914
Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.
January 12, 1915
The Rocky Mountain National Park is formed by an act of U.S. Congress.
January 12, 1915
The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote.
May 22, 1915
Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, and is the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the continental US during the 20th century.
June 21, 1915
The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens.
September 11, 1915
The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using overhead AC trolley wires for power.
November 1, 1915
Parris Island is officially designated a Marine Corps Recruit Depot.
January 24, 1916
In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax constitutional.
January 28, 1916
Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.
February 29, 1916
Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
March 15, 1916
President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.
March 16, 1916
The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US-Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.
March 19, 1916
Eight American planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa, the first United States air-combat mission in history.
April 8, 1916
In Corona, California, race car driver Bob Burman crashes, killing three and badly injuring five spectators.
May 5, 1916
U.S. marines invade the Dominican Republic.
May 20, 1916
The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting ("Boy with Baby Carriage").
June 3, 1916
The Reserve Officer Training Corps or ROTC is established by the U.S. Congress.
June 5, 1916
Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
June 15, 1916
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organization with a federal charter.
October 16, 1916
Margaret Sanger founds Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.
November 5, 1916
The Everett Massacre takes place in Everett, Washington as political differences lead to a shoot-out between the Industrial Workers of the World organizers and local police.
November 7, 1916
Jeannette Rankin is the first woman elected to the United States Congress.
November 19, 1916
Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures (the company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers).
January 17, 1917
The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
February 5, 1917
The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.
February 26, 1917
The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first ever jazz record for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York.
March 1, 1917
U.S. government releases the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public.
March 2, 1917
The enactment of the Jones-Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
March 4, 1917
Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.
March 8, 1917
The U.S. Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.
March 17, 1917
Delta Phi Epsilon is founded at New York University Law School.
March 31, 1917
The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the United States Virgin Islands.
April 2, 1917
The first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, takes her seat as a representative from Montana.
June 4, 1917
The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
June 23, 1917
In a game against the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox pitcher Ernie Shore retires 26 batters in a row after replacing Babe Ruth, who had been ejected for punching the umpire.
November 24, 1917
Nine police officers and one civilian are killed when a bomb explodes at the headquarters of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
December 12, 1917
In Nebraska, Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys.
January 8, 1918
President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.
February 5, 1918
Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane. It is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
February 21, 1918
The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
March 19, 1918
The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.
March 31, 1918
Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.
May 2, 1918
General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
June 1, 1918
World War I Western Front: Battle for Belleau Wood – Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord engage Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.
June 22, 1918
The Hammond circus train wreck kills 86 and injures 127 near Hammond, Indiana.
July 9, 1918
Great train wreck of 1918: in Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express killing 101 and injuring 171 people, making it the deadliest rail accident in United States history.
August 13, 1918
Women enlist in the United States Marine Corps for the first time. Opha Mae Johnson is the first woman to enlist.
October 4, 1918
An explosion kills more than 100 and destroys the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continue for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which are still being found in 2007.
November 10, 1918
The Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia receives a top-secret coded message from Europe (that would be sent to Ottawa, Ontario and Washington, DC) that said on November 11, 1918 all fighting would cease on land, sea and in the air.
December 4, 1918
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.
January 1, 1919
Edsel Ford succeeds his father, Henry Ford, as president of the Ford Motor Company.
January 15, 1919
Boston Molasses Disaster: A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, bursts and a wave of molasses rushes through the streets, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
January 16, 1919
Temperance movement: The United States ratifies the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition in the United States one year after ratification.
February 5, 1919
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.
February 25, 1919
Oregon places a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
February 26, 1919
An act of the U.S. Congress establishes most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).
April 19, 1919
Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
May 15, 1919
The Winnipeg General Strike begins. By 11:00 a.m., almost the whole working population of Winnipeg, Manitoba had walked off the job.
May 27, 1919
The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
June 4, 1919
Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.
June 11, 1919
Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the Triple Crown.
September 22, 1919
The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across the United States.
October 2, 1919
US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.
October 9, 1919
Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "win" the World Series.
October 28, 1919
The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
November 10, 1919
The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ending on November 12.
November 11, 1919
The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the IWW.
December 26, 1919
Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox is sold to the New York Yankees by owner Harry Frazee.
January 19, 1920
The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
March 19, 1920
The United States Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles for the second time (the first time was on November 19, 1919).
November 2, 1920
In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the result of the U.S. presidential election, 1920.
February 21, 1921
Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution.
May 19, 1921
The U.S. Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration.
May 31, 1921
Tulsa Race Riot: A civil unrest in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, the official death toll is 39, but recent investigations suggest the actual toll may be much higher.
June 1, 1921
Tulsa Race Riot: civil unrest in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
June 30, 1921
U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States.
August 25, 1921
The first skirmishes of the Battle of Blair Mountain occur.
September 7, 1921
In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.
September 8, 1921
16-year-old Margaret Gorman wins the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
October 21, 1921
President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south. George Melford's silent film, The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, premiers.
October 29, 1921
The Link River Dam, a part of the Klamath Reclamation Project, is completed.
November 11, 1921
The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.
December 4, 1921
The Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle ends in a hung jury.
January 28, 1922
Knickerbocker Storm, Washington D.C.'s biggest snowfall, causes the city's greatest loss of life when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater collapses.
February 8, 1922
President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House.
February 27, 1922
A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett.
March 20, 1922
The USS Langley (CV-1) is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.
April 7, 1922
Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior leases Teapot Dome petroleum reserves in Wyoming.
April 21, 1922
The first Aggie Muster is held as a remembrance for fellow Aggies who had died in the previous year.
May 30, 1922
In Washington, D.C. the Lincoln Memorial is dedicated.
June 9, 1922
First ringing of the Harkness Memorial Chime at Yale University.
June 22, 1922
Herrin massacre: 19 strikebreakers and 2 union miners are killed in Herrin, Illinois.
November 12, 1922
The Sigma Gamma Rho sorority is founded on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.
November 21, 1922
Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
February 10, 1923
Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas.
April 5, 1923
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company begins production of balloon-tires.
September 8, 1923
Honda Point Disaster: nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost.
February 8, 1924
Capital punishment: The first state execution using gas in the United States takes place in Nevada.
February 12, 1924
Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio.
February 22, 1924
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.
March 8, 1924
The Castle Gate mine disaster kills 172 coal miners near Castle Gate, Utah.
April 17, 1924
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios is formed by the merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and the Louis B. Mayer Company.
April 18, 1924
Simon & Schuster publishes the first Crossword puzzle book.
May 10, 1924
J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the Director of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation, and remains so until his death in 1972.
June 2, 1924
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
June 26, 1924
American occupying forces leave the Dominican Republic.
November 4, 1924
Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected as the first female governor in the United States.
January 1, 1925
The American astronomer Edwin Hubble announces the discovery of galaxies outside the Milky Way.
January 5, 1925
Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female governor in the United States.
February 2, 1925
Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
February 17, 1925
Harold Ross and Jane Grant found The New Yorker magazine; the debut issue is dated February 21, 1925.
February 25, 1925
Glacier Bay National Monument (now Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve) is established in Alaska.
March 4, 1925
Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to have his inauguration broadcast on radio.
April 30, 1925
Automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc is sold to Dillon, Read & Company for $146 million plus $50 million for charity.
June 6, 1925
The Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.
December 16, 1925
Alpha Phi Omega national service fraternity is founded at Lafayette College.
March 16, 1926
History of Rocketry: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
April 6, 1926
Walter Varney Airlines makes its first commercial flight (Varney is the root company of United Airlines).
April 20, 1926
Western Electric and Warner Bros. announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film.
May 9, 1926
Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of Byrd's diary seems to indicate that this did not happen).
August 6, 1926
Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.
October 1, 1926
An oil field accident cost aviator Wiley Post his left eye, but he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft.
October 24, 1926
Harry Houdini's last performance, which is at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.
February 23, 1927
The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
April 19, 1927
Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
April 30, 1927
The Federal Industrial Institute for Women, opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women's federal prison in the United States.
April 30, 1927
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
May 1, 1927
The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
May 18, 1927
The Bath School Disaster: Forty-five people are killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan.
May 20, 1927
At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, touching down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22 the next day.
May 21, 1927
Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
May 27, 1927
The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
May 31, 1927
The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
September 5, 1927
The first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, Trolley Troubles, produced by Walt Disney, is released by Universal Pictures.
September 7, 1927
The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Taylor Farnsworth.
September 30, 1927
Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season
October 6, 1927
Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent talking movie.
November 21, 1927
Columbine Mine Massacre: Striking coal miners are allegedly attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes.
December 2, 1927
Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.
February 25, 1928
Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C. becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
March 12, 1928
In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing over 600 people.
March 21, 1928
Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
May 15, 1928
Mickey Mouse premiered in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy
June 18, 1928
Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).
June 29, 1928
The Outerbridge Crossing and Goethals Bridge in Staten Island, New York both opened.
October 12, 1928
An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston
October 15, 1928
The airship, the Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.
January 17, 1929
Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip.
January 20, 1929
In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.
March 4, 1929
Charles Curtis becomes the first native-American Vice President of the United States.
April 6, 1929
Huey P. Long Governor of Louisiana is impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives.
May 23, 1929
The first talking cartoon of Mickey Mouse, "The Karnival Kid", is released.
October 11, 1929
JC Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.
October 24, 1929
"Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
October 28, 1929
Black Monday, a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.
October 29, 1929
The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday", ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
November 29, 1929
U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.
January 26, 1930
The Indian National Congress declares 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence) which occurred 20 years later.
February 18, 1930
While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.
February 18, 1930
Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.
March 13, 1930
The news of the discovery of Pluto is telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.
March 31, 1930
The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film for the next thirty eight years.
April 28, 1930
The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.
June 17, 1930
U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
March 3, 1931
The United States officially adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.
March 25, 1931
The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
June 23, 1931
Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.
July 1, 1931
United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport).
October 1, 1931
The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.
October 1, 1931
The second (and current) Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is opened in New York.
December 26, 1931
Phi Iota Alpha, the Oldest Latino Fraternity in Existence, was founded in Troy, NY.
January 1, 1932
The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.
January 12, 1932
Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.
February 29, 1932
TIME magazine features eccentric American politician William "Alfalfa" Murray on its cover after Murray stated his intention to run for President of the United States.
March 1, 1932
The son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, is kidnapped.
May 4, 1932
In Atlanta, Georgia, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.
May 12, 1932
Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.
May 29, 1932
World War I Veterans begin to assemble in Washington, DC in the Bonus Army to request cash bonuses promised to them to be paid in 1945.
June 6, 1932
The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (1/4 ¢/L) sold.
June 17, 1932
Bonus Army: around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
July 28, 1932
U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.
August 2, 1932
The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
September 18, 1932
Actress Peg Entwistle commits suicide by jumping from the letter "H" in the Hollywood sign.
November 8, 1932
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected the 32d President of the United States defeating Herbert Hoover.
December 5, 1932
German-born Swiss physicist Albert Einstein is granted an American visa.
January 3, 1933
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.
February 6, 1933
The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution goes into effect.
February 25, 1933
The USS Ranger (CV-4) is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier.
March 2, 1933
The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
March 4, 1933
Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet.
March 20, 1933
Giuseppe Zangara is executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
March 22, 1933
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs into law a bill legalizing the sale of beer and wine.
March 31, 1933
The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment.
April 7, 1933
Prohibition is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the XXI amendment.
May 27, 1933
The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
June 5, 1933
The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
June 6, 1933
The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.
September 12, 1933
Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.
October 10, 1933
United Airlines Chesterton Crash: A United Airlines Boeing 247 is destroyed by sabotage, the first such proven case in the history of commercial aviation.
October 12, 1933
The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, is acquired by the United States Department of Justice
December 5, 1933
Prohibition in the United States ends: Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to enact the amendment (this overturned the 18th Amendment which had made the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol illegal in the United States).
December 6, 1933
U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that the James Joyce's novel Ulysses is not obscene.
January 28, 1934
The first ski tow in the United States begins operation in Vermont.
March 24, 1934
U.S. Congress passes the Tydings-McDuffie Act allowing the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth.
April 12, 1934
The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, US.
April 12, 1934
The US Auto-Lite Strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.
May 21, 1934
Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.
May 23, 1934
American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
May 23, 1934
The Auto-Lite Strike culminates in the "Battle of Toledo", a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.
June 9, 1934
Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
June 15, 1934
The U.S. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.
June 19, 1934
The Communications Act of 1934 establishes the United States' Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
June 26, 1934
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.
July 20, 1934
Labor unrest in the U.S., as police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, wounding fifty; Seattle police led by the mayor police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen, and the governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.
September 8, 1934
Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 135 people.
October 22, 1934
In East Liverpool, Ohio, notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd is shot and killed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.
November 6, 1934
Memphis, Tennessee becomes the first major city to join the Tennessee Valley Authority.
April 8, 1935
The Works Progress Administration is formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 becomes law.
April 14, 1935
"Black Sunday Storm", the worst dust storm of the U.S. Dust Bowl.
May 24, 1935
The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field.
May 25, 1935
Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks five world records and ties a sixth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
June 11, 1935
Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States, at Alpine, New Jersey.
August 15, 1935
Will Rogers and Wiley Post are killed after their aircraft develops engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska.
September 3, 1935
Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph
September 8, 1935
US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.
September 13, 1935
Rockslide near Whirlpool Rapids Bridge ends the Great Gorge and International Railway.
September 24, 1935
Earl Bascom and Weldon Bascom produce the first rodeo ever held outdoors under electric lights at Columbia, Mississippi
September 30, 1935
The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated.
November 6, 1935
Edwin Armstrong presents his paper "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation" to the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
November 8, 1935
A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an organization charged with advancing industrial unionism.
November 9, 1935
The Congress of Industrial Organizations is founded in Atlantic City, New Jersey by eight trade unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor.
December 9, 1935
Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in gangland murder.
January 6, 1936
The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act is unconstitutional in the case United States v. Butler et al.
January 15, 1936
The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio (the building is built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company).
January 29, 1936
The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced.
February 29, 1936
Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
March 1, 1936
A strike occurs aboard the S.S. California, leading to the demise of the International Seamen's Union and the creation of the National Maritime Union.
March 8, 1936
Daytona Beach Road Course holds their first oval stock car race.
April 3, 1936
Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh II, the baby son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.
April 27, 1936
The United Auto Workers (UAW) gains autonomy from the American Federation of Labor.
May 25, 1936
The Remington Rand strike, led by the American Federation of Labor, begins.
June 7, 1936
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a trade union, is founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Philip Murray is elected its first president.
August 9, 1936
Summer Olympic Games: Games of the XI Olympiad: Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad.
October 26, 1936
The first electric generator at Hoover Dam went into full operation.
October 28, 1936
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicates the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.
January 20, 1937
Franklin Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This is the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were scheduled on March 4.
February 11, 1937
A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers Union.
March 2, 1937
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee signs a surprise collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.
March 18, 1937
The New London School explosion kills three hundred, mostly children.
June 14, 1937
Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.
June 14, 1937
U. S. House of Representatives passes the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.
August 2, 1937
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, essentially rendering marijuana and all its by-products illegal.
December 12, 1937
Panay incident: Japanese aircraft bomb and sink US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China.
December 21, 1937
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film ever, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theater.
January 3, 1938
The March of Dimes is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
March 13, 1938
World News Roundup is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio in the United States.
May 26, 1938
The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session.
June 14, 1938
Action Comics issue one is released, introducing Superman.
June 24, 1938
Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, land near Chicora, Pennsylvania.
October 15, 1938
The District of Columbia formally adopts a design for its flag.
October 30, 1938
Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.
November 18, 1938
Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
February 11, 1939
A Lockheed XP-38 flies from California to New York in 7 hours 2 minutes.
February 27, 1939
United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners' rights and are therefore illegal.
April 9, 1939
Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial, after being denied the right to sing at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall.
April 20, 1939
Billie Holiday records the first Civil Rights song "Strange Fruit".
May 23, 1939
The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.
June 6, 1939
Judge Joseph Force Crater is declared legally dead.
June 12, 1939
The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.
September 1, 1939
George C. Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
October 15, 1939
The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia Airport) is dedicated.
November 15, 1939
In Washington, D.C., US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
December 15, 1939
Gone with the Wind received its première at Loew's Grand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
February 29, 1940
For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
April 7, 1940
Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
April 23, 1940
The Rhythm Night Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198 people.
May 15, 1940
USS Sailfish (SS-192) recommissioned, originally the USS Squalus.
May 15, 1940
McDonald's opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
June 1, 1940
The Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation goes out of business, giving the City of New York full control of the subway system in the city.
July 27, 1940
The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.
September 12, 1940
An explosion at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Kenvil, New Jersey kills 51 people and injures over 200.
September 16, 1940
Sam Rayburn is elected Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He is widely regarded as the most effective Speaker of the House in American history.
October 1, 1940
The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
October 16, 1940
Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
November 5, 1940
Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected to a third term as President of the United States.
November 11, 1940
Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in U.S. Midwest.
January 6, 1941
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.
February 11, 1941
First Gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".
March 1, 1941
W47NV (now known as WSM-FM) begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station in the U.S..
March 17, 1941
In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
March 22, 1941
Washington's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.
September 28, 1941
Major League Baseball: Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox finishes the season with a batting average of .406. He is the latest major league player to have a batting average of .400 or better.
October 31, 1941
After 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore.
November 1, 1941
American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.
November 26, 1941
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.
December 15, 1941
The American Federation of Labor adopts a no-strike policy in war industries.
January 2, 1942
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history -- the Duquesne Spy Ring.
January 6, 1942
Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world.
January 16, 1942
Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.
February 9, 1942
Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
February 28, 1942
The heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed.
March 14, 1942
Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.
May 7, 1942
During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
May 11, 1942
William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
May 22, 1942
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee disbands, and a new trade union, the United Steelworkers, is formed.
June 13, 1942
The United States opens its Office of War Information.
June 13, 1942
The United States establish the Office of Strategic Services.
September 27, 1942
Glenn Miller and his Orchestra perform for the last time before Miller enters the US Army.
September 27, 1942
Last day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps troops barely escape after being surrounded by Japanese forces near the Matanikau River.
October 9, 1942
The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment.
October 23, 1942
All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner are killed when it is struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California. Amongst the victims is award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger ("Thanks for the Memory", "Love in Bloom", "Blue Hawaii").
October 23, 1942
The Battle for Henderson Field begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign and ends on October 26.
November 21, 1942
The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the highway is not usable by general vehicles until 1943).
December 2, 1942
Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
December 15, 1942
The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse begins during the Guadalcanal campaign.
January 15, 1943
The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.
February 20, 1943
American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
April 13, 1943
James Boarman, Fred Hunter, Harold Brest and Floyd G. Hamilton take part in an attempt to escape from Alcatraz .
April 13, 1943
The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth.
May 17, 1943
The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
August 31, 1943
The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for a black person, is commissioned.
October 14, 1943
U.S. 8th Air Force loses 60 B-17 Flying Fortresses during an assault on Schweinfurt.
October 19, 1943
Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
January 29, 1944
USS Missouri (BB-63) the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy is launched.
June 10, 1944
In baseball, 15-year old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.
June 15, 1944
In the Saskatchewan general election, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, is elected and forms the first socialist government of North America.
July 11, 1944
Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that he will run for a fourth term as President of the United States.
August 7, 1944
IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
October 20, 1944
Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
October 20, 1944
General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
October 25, 1944
Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, takes place in and around the Philippines between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Third and U.S. Seventh Fleets.
November 6, 1944
Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
November 7, 1944
Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America
November 29, 1944
The first surgery (on a human) to correct blue baby syndrome is performed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.
January 31, 1945
US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.
April 9, 1945
The United States Atomic Energy Commission is formed.
April 12, 1945
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies while in office; vice-president Harry Truman is sworn in as the 33rd President.
April 29, 1945
The Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
July 20, 1945
The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.
July 31, 1945
John K. Giles attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison.
September 7, 1945
Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines.
October 5, 1945
Hollywood Black Friday: A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators turns into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers' studios.
October 9, 1945
Parade in NYC for Fleet Admiral Nimitz and 13 USN/USMC Medal of Honor recipients
October 30, 1945
Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color barrier.
December 4, 1945
By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate approves United States participation in the United Nations (the UN was established on October 24, 1945).
December 28, 1945
The Congress of the United States officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance.
January 25, 1946
The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor.
April 26, 1946
Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claims to be God, marries the much-younger Edna Rose Ritchings, a celebrated anniversary in the International Peace Mission movement.
April 28, 1946
The religious leader and civil rights activist Father Divine marries Sweet Angel Divine Edna Rose Ritchings in a secret Washington, D.C. ceremony, officiated by the Rev. Albert E. Shadd.
May 21, 1946
Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
December 7, 1946
A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
January 3, 1947
Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
January 9, 1947
Elizabeth "Betty" Short, the Black Dahlia, is last seen alive.
January 22, 1947
KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
March 25, 1947
An explosion in a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
April 6, 1947
The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievements.
April 9, 1947
The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court's 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.
April 30, 1947
In Nevada, the Boulder Dam is renamed Hoover Dam a second time.
June 5, 1947
Marshall Plan: In a speech at Harvard University, United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe.
June 23, 1947
The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
June 24, 1947
Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.
September 9, 1947
First actual case of a computer bug being found: a moth lodges in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University.
September 17, 1947
James V. Forrestal is sworn in as the first Secretary of Defense of United States.
September 24, 1947
Majestic 12 is allegedly established by secret executive order of President Harry Truman
September 30, 1947
The World Series, featuring the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, is televised for the first time.
October 5, 1947
The first televised White House address is given by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
October 20, 1947
The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
October 24, 1947
Walt Disney testifies to the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.
November 2, 1947
In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.
November 6, 1947
Meet The Press makes its television debut (the show went to a weekly schedule on September 12, 1948).
November 17, 1947
The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.
November 17, 1947
American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observed the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century.
December 14, 1947
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is founded in Daytona Beach, Florida.
December 16, 1947
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.
March 20, 1948
With a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecasts of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, are given on CBS and NBC.
April 3, 1948
President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
May 26, 1948
The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 557 which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as an auxiliary of the United States Air Force.
May 30, 1948
A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.
June 8, 1948
Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.
June 20, 1948
Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, makes its television debut.
June 26, 1948
William Shockley files the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
June 26, 1948
Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery is published in The New Yorker magazine.
July 31, 1948
At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
September 13, 1948
Margaret Chase Smith is elected senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
September 15, 1948
The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 mph (1080 km/h).
September 18, 1948
Margaret Chase Smith of Maine becomes the first woman elected to the US Senate without completing another senator's term when she defeats Democratic opponent Adrian Scolten.
September 18, 1948
Ralph Bunche is confirmed as acting United Nations mediator for Palestine and Israel.
December 28, 1948
The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 50 miles south of Miami, Florida.
December 30, 1948
The Cole Porter Broadway musical, Kiss Me, Kate (1,077 performances), opens at the New Century Theatre and becomes the first show to win the Best Musical Tony Award.
January 17, 1949
The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, first airs.
January 25, 1949
At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented.
February 19, 1949
Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry by the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University.
March 2, 1949
Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
March 2, 1949
The first automatic street light is installed in New Milford, Conn..
April 5, 1949
A fire in a hospital in Effingham, Illinois, kills 77 people and leads to nationwide fire code improvements.
April 18, 1949
The aircraft carrier USS United States (CVA-58) is laid down at Newport News Drydock and Shipbuilding. However, the United States is canceled five days later, resulting in the Revolt of the Admirals.
May 20, 1949
In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor to the National Security Agency, is established.
June 24, 1949
The first Television Western, Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC starring William Boyd.
June 25, 1949
Long-Haired Hare, starring Bugs Bunny, is released in theaters.
July 21, 1949
The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.
September 4, 1949
The Peekskill Riots erupt after a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York.
October 14, 1949
Eleven leaders of the U.S. Communist Party are convicted, after a nine-month trial, of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
December 29, 1949
KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
January 7, 1950
A fire at the Mercy Hospital in Davenport, Iowa, kills 41 people.
January 17, 1950
The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car Company's offices in Boston, Massachusetts.
January 31, 1950
President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
February 9, 1950
Second Red Scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.
March 17, 1950
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium".
May 1, 1950
Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.
June 27, 1950
The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.
August 25, 1950
President Harry Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
September 4, 1950
Darlington Raceway is the site of the inaugural Southern 500, the first 500-mile NASCAR race.
September 21, 1950
George Marshall sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of United States.
October 11, 1950
Television: CBS's mechanical color system is the first to be licensed for broadcast by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
November 1, 1950
Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate US President Harry S. Truman at Blair House.
November 19, 1950
US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe
November 25, 1950
The "Storm of the Century", a violent snowstorm, paralyzes the northeastern United States and the Appalachians, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, records 57 inches of snow. 323 people die as a result of the storm.
December 12, 1950
Paula Ackerman, the first woman appointed to perform rabbinical functions in the United States, leads the congregation in her first services.
February 6, 1951
The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
February 27, 1951
The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.
March 29, 1951
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
March 31, 1951
Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
September 1, 1951
The United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty.
September 3, 1951
The first long-running American television soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, airs its first episode on the CBS network.
November 1, 1951
Operation Buster-Jangle: 6,500 American soldiers are exposed to 'Desert Rock' atomic explosions for training purposes in Nevada. Participation is not voluntary.
November 10, 1951
Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.
December 20, 1951
The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for the first time. The electricity powered four light bulbs.
January 14, 1952
NBC's long-running morning news program Today debuts, with host Dave Garroway.
March 20, 1952
The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
March 21, 1952
Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
April 8, 1952
U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.
April 21, 1952
Secretary's Day (now Administrative Professionals' Day) is first celebrated.
April 28, 1952
Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ends.
May 28, 1952
Memphis Kiddie Park opens in Brooklyn, Ohio. The park's Little Dipper roller coaster would become the oldest operating steel roller coaster in North America.
July 3, 1952
Puerto Rico's Constitution is approved by the Congress of the United States.
September 19, 1952
The United States bars Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England.
October 7, 1952
"American Bandstand" debuts on a local Philadelphia station.
November 1, 1952
Operation Ivy – The United States successfully detonates the first large hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike" ["M" for megaton], in the Eniwetok atoll, located in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The explosion had a yield of 10 megatons.
November 4, 1952
The United States government establishes the National Security Agency.
December 20, 1952
United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns in Moses Lake, Washington killing 87.
January 3, 1953
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
January 7, 1953
President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed the hydrogen bomb.
January 19, 1953
68% of all television sets in the United States are tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
February 11, 1953
President Dwight Eisenhower refuses clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
February 19, 1953
Censorship: Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.
February 28, 1953
James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April Nature (pub. April 2).
March 2, 1953
The Academy Awards are first broadcast on television by NBC.
April 10, 1953
Warner Brothers premieres the first 3-D film, entitled House of Wax.
April 13, 1953
CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program MKULTRA.
May 4, 1953
Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
May 18, 1953
Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
May 25, 1953
Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
May 25, 1953
The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
June 8, 1953
The United States Supreme Court rules that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.
June 19, 1953
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.
October 12, 1953
"The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York
December 30, 1953
The first ever NTSC color television sets go on sale for about USD at $1,175 each from RCA.
January 1, 1954
NBC makes the first coast-to-coast NTSC color broadcast when it telecast the Tournament of Roses Parade , with public demonstrations given across the United States on prototype color receivers.
January 14, 1954
The Hudson Motor Car Company merges with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation forming the American Motors Corporation.
January 20, 1954
The National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
January 21, 1954
The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.
February 23, 1954
The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
March 1, 1954
Nuclear testing: The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, is detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.
March 1, 1954
Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, injuring five Representatives. (See U.S. Capitol shooting incident (1954).)
March 9, 1954
McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly.
March 19, 1954
Willie Mosconi sets the world record by running 526 consecutive balls without a miss during a straight pool exhibition at East High Billiard Club in Springfield, Ohio. The record still stands today.
April 1, 1954
President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
April 7, 1954
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.
May 10, 1954
Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts.
May 17, 1954
The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
June 14, 1954
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" into the United States' Pledge of Allegiance.
July 15, 1954
First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.
September 27, 1954
The nationwide debut of Tonight! (The Tonight Show) hosted by Steve Allen on NBC.
September 30, 1954
The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear reactor powered vessel.
October 24, 1954
Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam
October 27, 1954
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
November 10, 1954
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the USMC War Memorial (Iwo Jima memorial) in Arlington National Cemetery.
November 27, 1954
Alger Hiss is released from prison after serving 44 months for perjury.
November 30, 1954
In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges Meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap in the only documented case of a human being hit by a rock from space.
December 2, 1954
The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and the Republic of China, is signed in Washington, D.C..
December 4, 1954
The first Burger King is opened in Miami, Florida, United States
December 23, 1954
The first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
February 18, 1955
Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot "Wasp" is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots of the Teapot series.
March 25, 1955
United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" as obscene.
April 3, 1955
The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.
April 12, 1955
The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.
April 19, 1955
The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network.
May 2, 1955
Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
May 9, 1955
Sam and Friends debuts on a local United States television channel, marking the first television appearance of both Jim Henson and what would become Kermit the Frog and The Muppets.
May 12, 1955
The last section of the IRT Third Avenue Elevated in Manhattan closes.
June 7, 1955
Lux Radio Theater signs off the air permanently. The show launched in New York in 1934, and featured radio adaptations of Broadway shows and popular films.
August 28, 1955
Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.
November 1, 1955
The bombing of United Airlines Flight 629 occurs near Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and five crew members aboard the Douglas DC-6B airliner.
December 5, 1955
The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL-CIO.
December 31, 1955
The General Motors Corporation becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.
January 8, 1956
Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
January 30, 1956
American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
February 29, 1956
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces to the nation that he is running for a second term.
April 2, 1956
As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiere on CBS-TV. The two soaps become the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30-minute format.
April 26, 1956
First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas
April 30, 1956
Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming "I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty."
May 1, 1956
The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
May 20, 1956
In Operation Redwing, (shot Cherokee), the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean;
June 5, 1956
Elvis Presley introduces his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements.
June 20, 1956
A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.
June 29, 1956
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.
June 30, 1956
A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 (Flight 718) collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States, killing all 128 on board the two planes.
September 4, 1956
The IBM RAMAC 305 is introduced, the first commercial computer that used magnetic disk storage.
September 11, 1956
People to People International is founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
September 27, 1956
USAF Captain Milburn G. Apt becomes the first man to exceed Mach 3 while flying the Bell X-2. Shortly thereafter, the craft goes out of control and Captain Apt is killed.
October 8, 1956
New York Yankees's Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series; one of only 17 perfect games in MLB history.
October 17, 1956
The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
November 13, 1956
The United States Supreme Court declares Alabama and Montgomery, Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
January 11, 1957
Mass-murderer Jack Gilbert Graham is executed in Colorado using the gas chamber.
February 4, 1957
The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".
February 17, 1957
A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri kills 72 people.
March 4, 1957
The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.
March 29, 1957
The New York, Ontario and Western Railway makes its final run.
June 24, 1957
In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment .
September 24, 1957
President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.
September 25, 1957
Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is integrated by the use of United States Army troops.
October 1, 1957
First appearance of "In God We Trust" on U.S. paper currency.
October 10, 1957
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he was refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.
October 11, 1957
Space Race: M.I.T. scientists calculate Sputnik I's booster rocket's orbit.
November 1, 1957
The Mackinac Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.
November 2, 1957
The Levelland UFO Case in Levelland, Texas, generates national publicity, and remains one of the most impressive UFO cases in American history.
December 6, 1957
Project Vanguard: A launchpad explosion of Vanguard TV3 thwarts the first United States attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.
December 17, 1957
The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
February 5, 1958
A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
February 28, 1958
A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children die in what remains the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.
March 5, 1958
The Explorer 2 spacecraft launches and fails to reach Earth orbit.
March 16, 1958
The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.
March 19, 1958
The Monarch Underwear Company fire leaves 24 dead and 15 injured.
March 24, 1958
Elvis Presley is officially inducted into the U.S.Army.
April 13, 1958
Van Cliburn is the first American to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
April 18, 1958
A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum.
May 12, 1958
A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
May 13, 1958
During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
May 18, 1958
An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 2,259.82 km/h (1,404.19 mph).
July 7, 1958
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law.
August 3, 1958
The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap.
September 2, 1958
United States Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan, Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew lost.
September 15, 1958
A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58.
October 7, 1958
The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.
October 14, 1958
The U.S. conducts an underground nuclear weapon test at the Nevada Test Site.
October 14, 1958
The District of Columbia Bar Association votes to accept black Americans as members.
November 12, 1958
A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.
November 23, 1958
Johnston McCulley dies in Los Angelas, California in his home after a series of operations.
February 6, 1959
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
February 6, 1959
At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
March 9, 1959
The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
March 18, 1959
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21.
May 26, 1959
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix retires the first 36 Milwaukee Braves batters to face him, only to lose his bid for a perfect game in the 13th inning.
June 8, 1959
The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
June 18, 1959
Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long is committed to a state mental hospital; he responds by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane.
July 1, 1959
Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) are adopted after agreement between the U.S., U.K. and other commonwealth countries.
August 7, 1959
The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design and is still in use.
September 12, 1959
Premiere of Bonanza, the first regularly-scheduled TV program presented in color.
November 2, 1959
Quiz show scandals: Twenty One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admits to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.
November 14, 1959
Four members of the Clutter family are murdered in Holcomb, Kansas. The book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is about these murders.
November 15, 1959
Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas.
November 19, 1959
The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
January 21, 1960
Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia, aboard Little Joe 1B – an unmanned test of the Mercury spacecraft.
January 23, 1960
The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 m (35,798 feet) in the Pacific Ocean.
January 25, 1960
The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the Payola scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accepted money for playing particular records.
February 1, 1960
Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
February 9, 1960
Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
March 17, 1960
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
March 22, 1960
Arthur Leonard Schawlow & Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
April 21, 1960
Founding of the Orthodox Bahá'í Faith in Washington, D.C.
May 10, 1960
The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.
May 13, 1960
Hundreds of UC Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Thirty-one students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.
September 11, 1960
The Young Americans for Freedom, meeting at home of William F. Buckley, Jr., promulgate the Sharon Statement.
October 19, 1960
The United States government places an embargo on Communist Cuba.
October 29, 1960
In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
November 1, 1960
While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.
November 8, 1960
John Fitzgerald Kennedy is elected the 35th President of the United States defeating Richard M. Nixon.
December 15, 1960
Richard Paul Pavlick is arrested for attempting to blow up and assassinate the U.S. President-Elect, John F. Kennedy only four days earlier.
December 16, 1960
1960 New York air disaster: While approaching New York's Idlewild Airport, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 collides with a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation in a blinding snowstorm over Staten Island, killing 134.
January 3, 1961
The SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, leaks radiation, killing three workers.
January 17, 1961
President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the "military-industrial complex".
January 20, 1961
John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man, and first-ever Roman Catholic, to become elected President of the United States.
January 24, 1961
1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. One weapon nearly detonates; its uranium core is still lost.
January 25, 1961
In Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.
January 26, 1961
John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman holds this appointment.
January 31, 1961
Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 – Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.
February 14, 1961
Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.
March 1, 1961
President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
March 29, 1961
The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.
March 30, 1961
The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.
April 20, 1961
Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed troops against Cuba.
May 5, 1961
The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes.
September 19, 1961
Betty and Barney Hill claim that they saw a mysterious craft in the sky and that it tried to abduct them.
November 29, 1961
Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico.
December 31, 1961
The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $12 billion USD in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
January 26, 1962
Ranger program: Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon. The space probe later misses the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
January 30, 1962
Two of the high-wire Flying Wallendas are killed when their seven-person pyramid collapses during a performance in Detroit, Michigan.
February 10, 1962
Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
February 14, 1962
First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
February 20, 1962
Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.
March 4, 1962
The United States Atomic Energy Commission announces that the first atomic power plant at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is in operation.
March 23, 1962
NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace initiative.
May 12, 1962
Douglas MacArthur delivers his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" valedictory speech at the United States Military Academy.
May 24, 1962
Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
June 11, 1962
Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
June 14, 1962
Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler, murders Anna Slesers, his first victim.
June 14, 1962
The New Mexico Supreme Court in the case of Montoya v. Bolack, 70 N.M. 196, prohibits state and local governments from denying Indians the right to vote because they live on a reservation.
September 20, 1962
James Meredith, an African-American, is barred from entering the University of Mississippi.
September 30, 1962
Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the United Farm Workers.
October 12, 1962
Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages
October 25, 1962
Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba
November 4, 1962
In a test of the Nike-Hercules air defense missile, Shot Dominic-Tightrope is successfully detonated 69,000 feet above Johnston Island. It would also be the last atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States.
November 17, 1962
President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.
February 19, 1963
The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique launches the reawakening of the Feminist Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness-raising groups spread.
April 10, 1963
129 people die when the submarine USS Thresher sinks at sea.
April 16, 1963
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.
May 15, 1963
Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space.
June 12, 1963
Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith.
June 17, 1963
The United States Supreme Court rules 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.
June 26, 1963
John F. Kennedy speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner" on a visit to West Berlin.
July 26, 1963
Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
August 30, 1963
Hotline between U.S. and Soviet leaders goes into operation.
September 2, 1963
CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.
September 19, 1963
Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc. is founded at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.
October 7, 1963
John F. Kennedy signs ratification for Partial Test Ban Treaty.
November 24, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald is fatally shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters. The shooting is broadcast live on television.
November 29, 1963
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
January 8, 1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
January 11, 1964
United States Surgeon General Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry, M.D., publishes a report saying that smoking may be hazardous to health. It is the first such statement ever made by the U.S. government.
January 23, 1964
The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
February 9, 1964
The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.
February 11, 1964
The Beatles hold their first concert in the United States at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C.
February 17, 1964
In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
March 12, 1964
New Hampshire Lottery: New Hampshire becomes the first state to sell lottery tickets in the modern era.
March 14, 1964
A jury in Dallas, Texas find Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy.
April 17, 1964
The Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Mustang at the New York World's Fair.
April 17, 1964
Jerrie Mock becomes the first woman to circumnavigate the world by air.
April 22, 1964
The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair opens for its first season.
June 19, 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.
June 28, 1964
Malcom X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
July 2, 1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
July 31, 1964
Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
September 21, 1964
The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, made its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.
September 27, 1964
The Warren Commission releases its report, concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
October 1, 1964
The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.
October 18, 1964
The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes for its first season after a six-month run.
October 27, 1964
Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launched his political career and came to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
November 3, 1964
Washington D.C. residents are able to vote in a presidential election for the first time.
November 21, 1964
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opens to traffic (at the time it is the world's longest suspension bridge).
December 3, 1964
Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property.
January 4, 1965
United States President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims his "Great Society" during his State of the Union address.
February 17, 1965
Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. The Mare Tranquillitatis or "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
February 20, 1965
Ranger 8 crashes into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
March 7, 1965
Bloody Sunday: A group of 600 civil rights marchers are forcefully broken up in Selma, Alabama.
March 15, 1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to the Selma crisis, tells U.S. Congress "We shall overcome" while advocating the Voting Rights Act.
March 19, 1965
The wreck of the SS Georgiana, valued at over $50,000,000 and said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, is discovered by then teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence exactly 102 years after its destruction.
March 21, 1965
Martin Luther King Jr leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
March 25, 1965
Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
April 9, 1965
Astrodome opens. First indoor baseball game is played.
April 21, 1965
The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair opens for its second and final season.
April 28, 1965
United States troops land in the Dominican Republic to "forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship" and to evacuate U.S. Army troops.
May 16, 1965
The Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.
July 14, 1965
The Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet.
August 9, 1965
A fire at a Titan missile base near Searcy, Arkansas kills 53 construction workers.
August 31, 1965
The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Aircraft makes its first flight.
September 9, 1965
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development is established.
October 17, 1965
The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes after a two year run. More than 51 million people had attended the two-year event.
November 2, 1965
Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.
November 6, 1965
Cuba and the United States formally agree to begin an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States. By 1971, 250,000 Cubans made use of this program.
November 13, 1965
The SS Yarmouth Castle burns and sinks 60 miles off Nassau with the loss of 90 lives.
December 15, 1965
Gemini program: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieved the first space rendezvous with Gemini 7.
January 12, 1966
Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
March 16, 1966
Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena Target Vehicle.
June 2, 1966
Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft land on another world.
June 27, 1966
The first broadcast of Dark Shadows is aired on ABC-TV.
July 29, 1966
Bob Dylan is injured in a motorcycle accident near Woodstock, New York.
August 22, 1966
Labor movements NFWA and AWOC merge to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers.
August 23, 1966
Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
September 9, 1966
The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act is signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
September 15, 1966
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.
October 5, 1966
Near Detroit, Michigan, there is a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor.
October 15, 1966
Black Panther Party is created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.
November 2, 1966
The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
November 8, 1966
Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
December 26, 1966
The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach.
January 12, 1967
Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.
January 18, 1967
Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler," is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life in prison.
February 4, 1967
Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.
March 6, 1967
Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.
March 14, 1967
The body of President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.
April 1, 1967
The United States Department of Transportation begins operation.
April 29, 1967
After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.
April 30, 1967
The Aldene Connection opened in Roselle Park, NJ, shutting down the CNJ's Jersey City waterfront terminal and transferring commuters to Newark Penn Station.
May 12, 1967
At Queen Elizabeth Hall, England, Pink Floyd stages the first-ever quadraphonic rock concert.
May 27, 1967
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.
May 30, 1967
At the Ascot Park in Gardena, California, daredevil Evel Knievel jumps his motorcycle over 16 cars lined up in a row.
June 2, 1967
Luis Monge is executed in Colorado's gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.
June 12, 1967
The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.
June 13, 1967
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
June 16, 1967
The three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival begins in Monterey, California.
July 23, 1967
In Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. 43 people are killed, 342 injured and approximately 1,400 buildings are burned.
October 2, 1967
Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of United States Supreme Court.
November 7, 1967
Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city.
November 7, 1967
US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
November 15, 1967
The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft which is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.
January 7, 1968
Surveyor Program: Surveyor 7, the final spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off from launch complex 36A, Cape Canaveral.
January 20, 1968
The Houston Cougars defeat the UCLA Bruins 71-69 to win the Game of the Century.
January 21, 1968
A B-52 bomber crashes near Thule Air Base, contaminating the area after its nuclear payload ruptures. One of the four bombs remains unaccounted for after the cleanup operation is complete.
January 23, 1968
North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo (AGER-2), claiming the ship had violated their territorial waters while spying.
January 31, 1968
Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.
February 1, 1968
The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form ill-fated Penn Central Transportation.
February 16, 1968
In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.
March 16, 1968
General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
March 18, 1968
Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.
March 31, 1968
President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not run for re-election.
April 3, 1968
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.
April 4, 1968
Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
April 6, 1968
In Richmond, Indiana's downtown district, a double explosion kills 41 and injures 150.
April 11, 1968
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
May 22, 1968
The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
June 3, 1968
Valerie Solanas, author of SCUM Manifesto, attempts to assassinate Andy Warhol by shooting him three times.
June 8, 1968
The body of assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
July 1, 1968
The CIA's Phoenix Program is officially established.
September 30, 1968
The Boeing 747 is rolled out and shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory.
October 14, 1968
Jim Hines of the USA becomes the first man ever to break the ten second barrier in the 100 metres Olympic final at Mexico City with a time of 9.95 sec. He would be the only man to do so until 1983.
November 1, 1968
The Motion Picture Association of America's film rating system is officially introduced, originating with the ratings G, M, R, and X.
November 5, 1968
United States presidential election, 1968: Republican Richard Nixon wins the American presidency, in what turned out to be a decades-long realignment election.
December 23, 1968
The United States won the release of 82 sailors by issuing a written apology to North Korea for spying on the Communist country.
February 7, 1969
The original Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse is removed from service.
March 10, 1969
In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. He would later retract his guilty plea.
April 4, 1969
Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
April 14, 1969
At the U.S. Academy Awards there is a tie for the Academy Award for Best Actress between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand.
April 17, 1969
Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.
May 15, 1969
People's Park: California Governor Ronald Reagan has an impromptu student park owned by University of California at Berkeley fenced off from student anti-war protestors, sparking a riot called Bloody Thursday.
May 22, 1969
Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.
June 3, 1969
Melbourne-Evans collision: Off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.
June 22, 1969
The Cuyahoga River catches fire, which triggers a crack-down on pollution in the river.
June 23, 1969
Warren E. Burger is sworn in as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring chief justice Earl Warren.
June 27, 1969
The Stonewall riots that mark the beginning of the gay liberation movement begin in Greenwich Village in Manhattan.
September 2, 1969
The first automated teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
November 10, 1969
National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.
November 21, 1969
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, D.C. on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.
November 21, 1969
The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.
December 6, 1969
Meredith Hunter is killed by the Hells Angels during a The Rolling Stones's concert at the Altamont Speedway in California.
January 16, 1970
Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
February 13, 1970
Black Sabbath, arguably the very first heavy metal album, is released.
March 17, 1970
My Lai massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
March 31, 1970
Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).
April 1, 1970
President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, requiring the Surgeon General's warnings on tobacco products and banning cigarette advertisements on television and radio in the United States starting on January 1, 1971.
April 6, 1970
Newhall Incident: Four California Highway Patrol officers are killed.
April 13, 1970
An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.
May 1, 1970
Protests erupt in Seattle, Washington, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country.
June 11, 1970
After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.
September 7, 1970
Bill Shoemaker sets record for most lifetime wins as a jockey (passing Johnny Longden).
September 11, 1970
88 of the hostages from the Dawson's Field hijackings are released. The remaining hostages, mostly Jews and Israeli citizens, are held until September 25.
September 26, 1970
The Laguna Fire starts in San Diego County, California, burning 175,425 acres (710 km²).
October 25, 1970
The wreck of Confederate submarine Hunley is found off Charleston, South Carolina, by pioneer underwater archaeologist, Dr. E. Lee Spence, then just 22 years old. Hunley is the first submarine to sink a ship in warfare.
October 28, 1970
Gary Gabelich sets a land speed record in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.
November 12, 1970
The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous exploding whale incident.
November 18, 1970
U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the U.S. Congress for $155 million USD in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government.
December 2, 1970
The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.
January 1, 1971
Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television.
January 12, 1971
The Harrisburg Seven: The Reverend Philip Berrigan and five others are indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, D.C.
January 25, 1971
Charles Manson and three female "Family" members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders.
February 3, 1971
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.
February 9, 1971
Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
March 1, 1971
A bomb explodes in a men's room in the United States Capitol: the Weather Underground claims responsibility.
April 7, 1971
U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his decision to increase the rate of American troop withdrawals from Vietnam.
April 10, 1971
In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China hosts the U.S. table tennis team for a weeklong visit.
April 19, 1971
Charles Manson is sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders.
May 1, 1971
Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is formed to take over U.S. passenger rail service.
May 31, 1971
In accordance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1968, observation of Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday in May for the first time, rather than on the traditional Memorial Day of May 30.
June 7, 1971
The United States Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment.
June 30, 1971
Ohio ratifies the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect.
September 8, 1971
In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
September 9, 1971
The four-day Attica Prison riot begins, which eventually results in 39 dead, most killed by state troopers retaking the prison.
September 13, 1971
State police and National Guardsmen storm New York's Attica Prison to end a prison revolt. 42 people die in the assault.
October 1, 1971
Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida, United States.
October 10, 1971
Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, the London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
November 6, 1971
The United States Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.
November 13, 1971
The American space probe, Mariner 9, becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet successfully, swinging into its planned trajectory around Mars.
January 5, 1972
U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.
February 15, 1972
Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
February 18, 1972
The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, 6 Cal.3d 628 invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison.
February 26, 1972
The Buffalo Creek Flood caused by a burst dam kills 125 in West Virginia.
February 29, 1972
Hank Aaron becomes the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to sign a $200,000 contract.
March 2, 1972
The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
May 15, 1972
The island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.
May 15, 1972
In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to be become President.
June 29, 1972
The U.S. Supreme Court rules the death penalty could constitute "cruel and unusual punishment".
July 31, 1972
Northeast Airlines flies its last flight before being integrated into Delta Air Lines the next day.
September 1, 1972
In Reykjavík, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beats Russian Boris Spassky and becomes the world chess champion.
October 12, 1972
En route to the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk
October 25, 1972
The Washington Post reports that White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman is the fifth person to control a secret cash fund designed to finance illegal political sabotage and espionage during the 1972 presidential election campaign (see also Watergate scandal).
November 29, 1972
Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) releases Pong (the first commercially successful video game) in Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.
December 7, 1972
Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as "The Blue Marble" as they leave the Earth.
January 7, 1973
Mark Essex fatally shoots 10 people and wounds 13 others at Howard Johnson's Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana before being shot to death by police officers.
January 22, 1973
The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.
January 23, 1973
President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
January 27, 1973
Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.
March 5, 1973
Donald DeFreeze, the future Symbionese Liberation Army leader, escapes from Vacaville Prison.
March 17, 1973
The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family.
March 20, 1973
The first USA National Ag Day to recognize the importance and daily contributions of American agriculture.
April 4, 1973
The World Trade Center in New York is officially dedicated.
April 6, 1973
The American League of Major League Baseball begin using the Designated Hitter
May 8, 1973
A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
May 11, 1973
Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed.
June 4, 1973
A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
June 21, 1973
In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.
July 13, 1973
Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.
September 20, 1973
Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
October 10, 1973
Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with federal income tax evasion.
October 16, 1973
Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
October 19, 1973
President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
October 20, 1973
Saturday Night Massacre: President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
October 23, 1973
The Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations about the scandal.
October 27, 1973
The Cañon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite, strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.
November 7, 1973
The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.
November 16, 1973
U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
November 27, 1973
The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on December 6, the House confirmed him 387 to 35).
December 3, 1973
Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
December 6, 1973
The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on November 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3).
December 24, 1973
District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.
December 25, 1973
The ARPANET crashes when a programming bug causes all ARPANET traffic to be routed through the server at Harvard University, causing the server to freeze.
January 2, 1974
President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.
January 4, 1974
United States President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
January 4, 1974
Serial killer Ted Bundy murders his first known victim when he entered the basement bedroom of 18-year-old Joni Lenz and suffocated her.
January 6, 1974
In response to the 1973 energy crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.
February 4, 1974
The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.
February 8, 1974
After 84 days in space, the crew of the first American space station Skylab return to Earth.
February 17, 1974
Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House with a stolen helicopter.
February 22, 1974
Samuel Byck tries and fails to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon.
February 23, 1974
The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
February 28, 1974
After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.
March 18, 1974
Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
June 1, 1974
The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims is published in the journal Emergency Medicine.
October 8, 1974
Franklin National Bank collapses due to fraud and mismanagement; at the time it is the largest bank failure in the history of the United States.
November 20, 1974
The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
December 25, 1974
Marshall Fields drives a vehicle through the gates of the White House, resulting in a four-hour standoff.
January 8, 1975
Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.
March 27, 1975
Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
April 4, 1975
Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
April 8, 1975
Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
May 12, 1975
Mayagüez incident: the Cambodian navy seizes the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez in international waters.
September 5, 1975
Sacramento, California: a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson, Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.
September 22, 1975
Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by Oliver Sipple.
September 29, 1975
WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world's first black-owned-and-operated television station.
September 30, 1975
The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight.
October 11, 1975
The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Andy Kaufman, Janis Ian and Billy Preston as guests.
October 30, 1975
The New York Daily News runs the “Ford to City: Drop Dead” headline.
November 10, 1975
The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.
November 28, 1975
As the World Turns and The Edge of Night, the final two American soap operas that had resisted going to pre-taped broadcasts, air their last live episodes.
December 19, 1975
John Paul Stevens is appointed a justice of The United States Supreme Court.
January 15, 1976
Gerald Ford's would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.
February 2, 1976
The Groundhog Day gale hits the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada.
February 19, 1976
Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by President Gerald R. Ford's Proclamation 4417
March 27, 1976
The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens.
April 1, 1976
Apple Computer is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
April 1, 1976
Conrail takes over operations from six bankrupt railroads in the Northeastern U.S..
May 24, 1976
The London to Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
June 5, 1976
Collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho, United States.
June 25, 1976
Missouri Governor Christopher S. Bond issues an executive order rescinding the Extermination Order, formally apologizing on behalf of the state of Missouri for the suffering it had caused the Latter Day Saints.
June 28, 1976
The Angolan court sentenced US and UK mercenaries to death sentences and prison terms in the Luanda Trial.
September 3, 1976
Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars.
September 21, 1976
Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende, overthrown in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet.
October 11, 1976
George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 is approved by President Gerald R. Ford.
October 20, 1976
The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan and Luling, Louisiana. Seventy-eight passengers and crew died; only 18 people aboard the ferry survived.
January 21, 1977
President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada.
January 28, 1977
The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which severely affected and crippled much of Upstate New York, but Buffalo, NY, Syracuse, NY, Watertown, NY, and surrounding areas are most affected, each area accumulating close to 10 feet of snow on this one day.
February 18, 1977
The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" sitting on top of a Boeing 747.
March 4, 1977
The first Cray-1 supercomputer is shipped to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
March 11, 1977
The 1977 Hanafi Muslim Siege: more than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims are set free after ambassadors from three Islamic nations join negotiations.
May 25, 1977
Star Wars is released. It rapidly becomes a cult classic and is the start of a six-movie franchise.
May 28, 1977
In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 people inside.
June 5, 1977
The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.
June 10, 1977
James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee, but is recaptured on June 13.
June 16, 1977
Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
August 15, 1977
The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "Wow! signal" from the notation made by a volunteer on the project.
September 7, 1977
The Torrijos-Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
September 30, 1977
Due to US budget cuts and dwindling power reserves, the Apollo program's ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down.
October 24, 1977
Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)
November 6, 1977
The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, fails, killing 39.
January 1, 1978
The Constitution of the Northern Mariana Islands becomes effective.
February 1, 1978
Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.
February 8, 1978
Proceedings of the United States Senate are broadcast on radio for the first time.
March 5, 1978
The Landsat 3 is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
March 28, 1978
The US Supreme Court hands down 5-3 decision in Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, a controversial case involving involuntary sterilization and judicial immunity.
April 7, 1978
Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
April 27, 1978
Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.
June 28, 1978
The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bars quota systems in college admissions.
September 11, 1978
U.S. President Jimmy Carter, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel meet at Camp David and agree on a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt and a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
December 16, 1978
Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first post-Depression era city to default on its loans, owing $14,000,000 to local banks.
January 29, 1979
Brenda Spencer kills two people and wounds eight at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School shootings.
February 1, 1979
Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
February 13, 1979
An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.
February 14, 1979
In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
March 5, 1979
Voyager 1's closest approach to Jupiter, 172,000 miles.
March 19, 1979
The United States House of Representatives begins broadcasting its day-to-day business via the cable television network C-SPAN.
March 25, 1979
The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
March 26, 1979
Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C..
March 28, 1979
In Pennsylvania, operators fail to recognize that a relief valve is stuck open in the primary coolant system of Three Mile Island's Unit 2 nuclear reactor following an unexpected shutdown. As a result, enough coolant drains out of the system to allow the core to overheat and partially melt down.
April 22, 1979
The Albert Einstein Memorial is unveiled at The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.
June 12, 1979
Bryan Allen wins the second Kremer prize for a man powered flight across the English Channel in the Gossamer Albatross.
July 15, 1979
U.S. President Jimmy Carter gives his famous "malaise" speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation."
September 1, 1979
The American space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.
September 7, 1979
The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) makes its debut.
September 7, 1979
The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1 billion to avoid bankruptcy.
September 22, 1979
The South Atlantic Flash or Vela Incident is observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
September 27, 1979
The United States Department of Education receives final approval from the U.S. Congress to become the 13th US Cabinet agency.
October 1, 1979
The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama.
October 6, 1979
Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit the White House.
October 14, 1979
The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C., the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, demands "an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people," draws 200,000 people.
October 17, 1979
The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services. Both replace the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
November 3, 1979
Greensboro massacre: Five members of the Communist Workers Party are shot dead and seven are wounded by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis during a "Death to the Klan" rally.
November 4, 1979
Iran hostage crisis begins: a group of Iranians, mostly students, invades the United States embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).
November 9, 1979
Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert is cancelled.
November 12, 1979
Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran.
November 14, 1979
Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.
November 21, 1979
The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set on fire, killing four. (see: Foreign relations of Pakistan)
December 3, 1979
In Cincinnati, Ohio, eleven fans are killed during a stampede for seats before a Who concert at Riverfront Coliseum.
December 5, 1979
Sonia Johnson is formally excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for her outspoken criticism of the church concerning the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
March 10, 1980
Madeira School headmistress Jean Harris shoots and kills Scarsdale diet doctor Herman Tarnower
March 21, 1980
On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who Shot JR?"
April 2, 1980
President Jimmy Carter signs the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in an effort to help the U.S. economy rebound.
April 24, 1980
Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.
April 29, 1980
Corazones Unidos Siempre Chi Upsilon Sigma National Latin Sorority Inc. is founded.
May 9, 1980
In Norco, California, five masked gunman hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.
May 24, 1980
The International Court of Justice calls for the release of United States embassy hostages in Tehran, Iran. The hostages would not be freed until the following January.
August 19, 1980
Saudia Flight 163, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar burns after making an emergency landing at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 301 people.
October 29, 1980
Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport.
November 21, 1980
A deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada (now Bally's Las Vegas). 87 people are killed and more than 650 are injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history.
November 21, 1980
Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. The resulting whirlpool sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet down to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.
December 2, 1980
Four U.S. nuns and churchwomen, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a death squad in El Salvador.
December 11, 1980
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (also known as CERCLA or Superfund) is enacted by the U.S. Congress.
January 1, 1981
The Republic of Palau achieves self-government though it is not independent from the United States.
January 19, 1981
Iran Hostage Crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.
January 20, 1981
Iran releases 52 American hostages twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President, the oldest man to be inaugurated at 69.
February 10, 1981
A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino kills eight and injures 198.
February 11, 1981
100,000 US gallons (380 m3) of radioactive coolant leak into the containment building of TVA Sequoyah 1 nuclear plant in Tennessee, contaminating 8 workers.
February 13, 1981
A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
March 6, 1981
After 19 years of presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time.
March 30, 1981
President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.
April 12, 1981
The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
April 14, 1981
STS-1 – The first operational space shuttle, Columbia (OV-102) completes its first test flight.
June 25, 1981
Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.
July 17, 1981
A walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri collapses killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 caused by structural failure.
August 5, 1981
Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
August 7, 1981
The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
September 15, 1981
The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
September 15, 1981
The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C.
September 16, 1981
Sugar Ray Leonard beats Thomas Hearns in their first of two epic boxing bouts.
September 21, 1981
Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female supreme court justice.
September 25, 1981
Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the 102nd Justice sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the first woman to hold the office.
October 14, 1981
Citing official misconduct in the investigation and trial, Amnesty International charges the U.S. government with holding Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement as a political prisoner.
December 19, 1981
Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.
December 28, 1981
The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia.
January 8, 1982
The break up of AT&T: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
January 10, 1982
The Freezer Bowl, the NFL's coldest game in terms of wind chill, at -37°F, is won by the Cincinnati Bengals who defeat the San Diego Chargers 27-7 and advance to Super Bowl XVI.
January 17, 1982
"Cold Sunday" in the United States would see temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.
January 30, 1982
Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner".
March 26, 1982
A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C..
April 21, 1982
Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers becomes the first pitcher to record 300 saves.
May 1, 1982
The 1982 World's Fair opens in Knoxville, Tennessee.
June 19, 1982
In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University in Beirut, is kidnapped.
June 21, 1982
John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
June 27, 1982
Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the final research and development flight mission, STS-4.
October 1, 1982
EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
October 7, 1982
Cats opens on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
November 1, 1982
Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of their factory in Marysville, Ohio. The Honda Accord is the first car produced there.
November 13, 1982
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.
November 30, 1982
U.S Pop Icon Michael Jackson releases his 6th studio album ,"Thriller", which will later go on to be the biggest selling album of all time.
December 1, 1982
At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
December 3, 1982
A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.
December 7, 1982
In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
December 8, 1982
Activist Norman Mayer threatens to blow up the Washington Monument, before being killed by United States Park Police.
December 16, 1982
The Federal Reserve announces that the operating capacity of factories has gone down to 67.8%.
December 23, 1982
The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces it has identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri.
December 26, 1982
Time Magazine's Man of the Year is for the first time a non-human, the personal computer.
January 18, 1983
The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals to his family.
January 19, 1983
The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
February 14, 1983
United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapses. Its president, Jake Butcher is later convicted of fraud.
February 18, 1983
Thirteen people die and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee Massacre in Seattle, Washington. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history.
February 22, 1983
The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
February 23, 1983
The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.
February 28, 1983
The final episode of M*A*S*H is broadcast in the USA, becoming the most watched television episode in history, with 106–125 million viewers in the U.S. (estimate varies by source).
March 23, 1983
Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.
April 4, 1983
Space Shuttle Challenger makes its maiden voyage into space (STS-6).
April 7, 1983
During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first space shuttle spacewalk.
April 18, 1983
A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
May 17, 1983
U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds), in response to Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.
May 17, 1983
Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
June 13, 1983
Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the solar system.
June 28, 1983
The Mianus River Bridge collapses over the Mianus River in Connecticut, killing 3 drivers in their vehicles.
July 24, 1983
George Brett batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident".
September 12, 1983
A Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is robbed of approximately US$7 million by Los Macheteros.
October 23, 1983
Lebanon Civil War: The U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut is hit by a truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. Marines. A French army barracks in Lebanon is also hit that same morning, killing 58 troops.
October 25, 1983
Operation Urgent Fury: The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d'état.
November 2, 1983
U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
November 7, 1983
1983 United States Senate bombing: a bomb explodes inside the U.S. Capitol Building.
January 1, 1984
The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is broken up into twenty-two independent units as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T .
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