Chronography of the USA
Page last modified
13/6/2022
For Indigenous
American Nations, Click Here
See Road
transport for rising US auto production, early 20th century.
USA Urban Growth � Image of Chicago, 1908 and 1970 here
USA Urban Growth � Map of Denver area here
USA Urban Growth � Washington DC, 1785, 1795 and present-day
USA Urban Growth � Washington urban sprawl
US Bureau of Economic
Analysis, https://www.bea.gov/
US Bureau of Labor, https://www.bls.gov/
US Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/
US population data, https://www.census.gov/popclock/
Hawaii
� see Appendix 2 below
US Presidents born, nominated, elected, died � see Appendix 3
below
Alaska � see Appendix
4 below
California � see Appendix
5 below
Florida � see Appendix
6 below
US
National Parks, see Appendix 7 below
As MarkTwain said: �Both politicians and nappies need to be changed often and for the same
reason!�
Box
Index
16.0,
9-11 Terrorist Attacks, 1999-2002
15.0,
President Clinton
impeached over Monica Lewinsky, acquitted, 1973-99
14.0,
Unabomber, 1978-98
13.0,
Timothy McVeigh bombing, 1995-97
12.0,
OJ Simpson chase and trial,
1994-95
11.0,
USA global trade agreements,
1993-94
10.0,
US peace dividend, defence
cuts, 1990-93
9.0,
Noriega arrested, 1989-90
8.0,
Iran-Contra affair, 1983-89
7.0,
200th anniversary State
celebrations, 1987-91
6.0,
Watergate scandal 1971-75
5.0,
USA and USSR signed
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, 1972
4.0, US
involvement in Vietnam, Cambodia, 1961-75
4.0(a) USA pulls
troops out of Vietnam, due to economic and domestic pressures, 1973
4.0(b) North
Vietnam steps up military activity against the South. In USA, Pentagon Papers
leaked, 1971-2
4.0(c) US failed
intervention in Cambodia, 1970
4.0(d) President
Nixon succeeds President Johnson, 1969
4.0(e) Execution of
Nguyen Van Leun and My Lai Massacre, US opinion turns against War, 1968
4.0(f) Escalation
of US action in Vietnam, ground troops now sent in, 1965
3.0,
USA Cold War strategy 1960-61
2.5, Eisenhower Doctrine; Foreign policy
1955-58
2.0,
McCarthyism censured, 1954-57
1.0,
Fear of Communism;
McCarthyism, 1950-53
0.0, US involvement in the Korean War, 1950-51
-1.0, NATO created, Hiss exposed, McCarthy�s
anti-Communist drive begins, 1949-51
-2.0, Start of the Cold War, Iron Curtain.
Marshall Aid to western Europe, 1946-50
-3.0, USA and World War Two 1939-45
7/5/2021, A cyberiattack by a group
called Darkside shut down the crucial Colonial oil pipeline taking petrol from
Texas to supply the east coast of the USA. The pipeline was down for several
days, causing motorists to panic-buy fuel.
13/1/2021, After a Senate vote, President Trump became the first
US President to be impeached twice. This second impeachment was based on his
alleged incitement of the Capitol Hill rioters of 6/1/2021.
6/1/2021, In Washington DC, USA, a mob of several thousand
Republican Trump
supporters stormed into the Capitol Buildings and occupied them for several
hours. They were protesting that the 2020 Presidential Election result, in
which Democrat Joe Biden, won, had been
falsified.
25/5/2020, In Minneapolis, a Black man, George Floyd, bought some
cigarettes at a shop and paid with a US$ 20 note. The shopkeeper accused Mr Floyd
of passing a counterfeit note; Mr Floyd refused to return the cigarettes. The
shopkeeper called the police. The police handcuffed Mr Floyd, then knelt on his
neck; he died of suffocation. This event started a series of �Black Lives
Matter� marches and demonstrations that spread across the entire USA and
several European countries. A minority of the demonstrators also looted shops
and caused property damage. In Bristol a statue of the slave trader and local
philanthropist Edward
Colston was pulled from its plinth in Bristol UK and thrown in the
harbour. There were concerns that demonstrators were not social-distancing and
would spread a further wave of Covid-19.
22/3/2019, Robert Mueller completed his
report on Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential election.
26/2/2019, The longest US Government shutdown in history, 35
days, ended as President
Trump backed down before
opposition in (Democrat-controlled) Congress in a dispute over
funding� for a �wall� (or, steel barrier)
to keep out migrants on the Mexican border. However Trump later declared an
�emergency� so as to try and secure funding for the barrier by alternative
means, by using emergency powers to take funding from other areas of
government.
11/1/2019, The USA began to pull its forces out of Syria.
Russia, ally of Syrian President Assad, welcomed the news, as Assad
appeared to have won the Syrian Civil War. There were concerns that the US move
could allow ISIS to regroup, or expose the Kurds to attacks from Turkey.
1/1/2019, In the USA, President Trump�s measure to raise tariffs on
US$ 250 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25% came into
effect.
8/5/2018, President Trump of the US unilaterally pulled
out of the Iran
Nuclear Deal, arranged by his predecessor President Obama, under which Iran received
financial aid in return for curbing its nuclear missiles programme.
2/10/2017, Early in the morning, a gunman opened fire in Las
Vegas. Shooting from the Mandalay Bay Hotel, he killed 58 and injured over 500.
He shot himself dead as policed closed in. The gunman was initially alleged to
be ISIS related but in fact there was no link to any terrorist organisation.
The motive remains unknown.
27/1/2017, President Trump of the US issued a
controversial executive order instituting a temporary travel ban on the entry
of people to the US from seven mainly-Muslim countries. The ban was challenged and
overturned in the US Courts.
12/6/2016, An Islamist gunman, Omar Mateen, entered a gay
nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and killed 50 people. It was the worst massacre
in recent US history.
7/12/2015, Donald Trump, contender for the Republican
Presidential nomination, called for a ban on all Muslims entering the US, after
an Islamic gunman shot 14 dead in San Bernardino, California, whilst the
conflict with ISIS was still ongoing. There were widespread protests at his
comments, and over 550,000 people in the UK signed a petition to ban him from Britain.
21/8/2015, Britain and Iran re-opened their embassies in each
other�s capitals. This followed a nuclear agreement between Iran and the USA
organised by US
President Obama (but not yet ratified by US Congress).
15/4/2013, The Boston
Marathon race was hit by two bombs, killing 3 and injuring 284.
17/9/2012, Occupy Wall
Street protests began in the USA
16/8/2012, Julian
Assange, founder of Wikileaks,� was officially given political asylum by
Ecuador.
20/7/2012, James Eagan Holmes, 25, entered
a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, USAA, where the film Batman was showing and shot dead 12 people, injuring another b58l.
Holmes told police he was the �Joker�. There was pressure on IUS President
Obama to tighten gun laws.
4/4/2011, In the US, Barack Obama announced his intention to stand
for re-election for a second term.
28/11/2010, Wikileaks released over 250,000 American diplomatic cables, of which 100,000
which were �secret� or �confidential�.
19/9/2010, The BP oil
well, Deepwater Horizon, was capped after spilling millions of barrels of
oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
25/7/2010, Wikileaks released 90,000 covert and classified
documents relating to the US occupation of Afghanistan, 2004-2010.
20/4/2010, The Deepwater
Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing 11 workers. Major oil pollution ensued.
27/1/2010,
J D Salinger, reclusive author of �Catcher in the Rye�, died aged 91.
25/8/2009, Veteran US Senator
Edward Kennedy died,
25/6/2009, The
American entertainer Michael Jackson
died (born 29/8/1958).
18/11/2008,
Heads of the big three US car manufacturers asked the US government for
assistance during the ongoing Credit Crunch.� They said their companies were important as
job providers.
1/8/2007, In the USA, 13�
motorists died when a road bridge over the River Mississippi collapsed
during the rush hour in Minneapolis. 50 cars plunged 20 metres into the river.
An investigation found that steel plates holding up the bridges were too thin
to bear the weight of the bridge and cars.
16/4/2007, Student Cho Seung Hui went on a shooting rampage at
Virginia Tech University, killing 32 staff and students. Cho then shot himself.
27/12/2006, Former US President Gerald Ford
died aged 93.
2/10/2006, In� the USA, 26 year old gunman Charles Carl
Roberts burst into an Amish school in Pennsylvania and killed
several girls, before shooting himself dead.
27/9/2006, A hostage situation at
Platte Canyon High School near Bailey, Colorado, United States ended with the
death of the gunman.
26/4/2006, Construction of the Freedom Tower in New York
began. It was on the site of the Twin Towers destroyed in the 9-11 attacks in
2001.
28/3/2006, Caspar Weinberger, US Secretary
of Defence, died (born 18/8/1917)
2/12/2005, Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000th person to be executed in the USA since capital punishment
was re-introduced in 1976.
29/8/2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the southern and south
�east states of the USA, with winds of up to 175 mph, severely damaging an area
as big as Great Britain. New Orleans
was particularly badly hit. The city of 500,000 people sits around 1 metre
below sea level, due to subsidence associated with the growth of the
Mississippi delta, and was flooded, in some areas several metres deep, when the
levees protecting the city from Lake Pontchartrain to the north gave way.
Several thousand people died. There were allegations that the maintenance of
the levees had been cut back to help fund the fighting in Iraq, and that
National Guardsmen who could have helped evacuate the victims and restore law
and order were away in Iraq. A week after the floods, there was almost no food
or potable water, and disease and looting, along with rapes and murder, were
rampant. People likened the situation to a Third World disaster, right in
America itself.
28/8/2005, The Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, ordered the
evacuation of the city as Hurricane
Katrina loomed.
22/8/2005, The Atlanta bomber, Eric Rudolph
(born 19/9/1966), was sentenced to four life terms without parole.
5/7/2005, Vice Admiral James Stockdale,
US politician, died (born 23/12/1923)
7/1/2005, Rosemary Kennedy, eldest daughter
of US President
Kennedy, died (born 13/9/1918).
15/11/2004, General Colin Powell resigned as
US Secretary of State. President Bush nominated national security
advisor Condoleezza� Rice as his successor.
22/7/2004, In the US the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks published its final report on the 9-11 attacks.
There was, it said, a failure of imagination, anticipation and policy.
2/3/2004, US Senator John Kerry
won the nomination for the Democrat Party�s Presidential candidate after
winning 9 out of 10 State primary and caucus elections.
24/3/2004, In the US, Richard Clarke,
former deputy national security advisor, testified before the National
Commission on Terrorist attacks, which was established by the US Congress to
investigate the intelligence failures which contributed to the 9-11 attacks. He
stated that the US Government was distracted from Al-Quaeda by the question of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
18/11/2003, US President Bush visited Prime Minister Tony Blair of the
UK; there were ongoing protests against the US war on Iraq.
14/8/2003, Across the
N.E. USA and Canada, nine States (Ontario, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vermont) lost power when
one power station became overloaded and shut down, creating a domino effect
across the outdated electricity distribution system.
17/4/2003, John Paul Getty, oil magnate, died aged 84.
5/11/2002, US Congressional elections
gave a majority to the Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives.
29/4/2002, The USA was readmitted to
the United Nations Commission for Human rights, after a 12-month suspension for
refusing to recognise the International Criminal Court.
22/1/2002, In the USA, K-Mart became
the largest retail chain to date to file for bankruptcy;
19/4/2002, US Congress rejected President
Bush�s proposals to authorise oil exploration in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.
2/8/2001, Under pressure from US President
Bush, the House of Representatives voted to authorise oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
despite protests from indigenous Americans that this would jeopardise their
existence as a nation.
23/12/2001, The �shoe
bomber�, Richard
Reid, attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to
Miami, by setting off explosives hidden in his shoe, but was overpowered by the
other passengers.
4/10/2001, The first anthrax
attack occurred on a US government office, sent through the post.� More anthrax arrived in the post on
9/10/2001.
16.0, 9-11 Terrorist Attacks, 1999-2002
3/8/2004, In
the US, the Statue of Liberty was reopened for the first time since the
terrorist attacks of 2001.
29/1/2002, US President Bush
denounced the �Axis of Evil� � the
states of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
7/10/2001. Following the September 11, 2001 attack on the USA,
missile attacks began on Afghanistan,
prior to US invasion. President George Bush announced the start of
Operation Enduring Freedom, to root out
Al Quaeda
20/9/2001, President Bush
declared a �War on Terror�.
17/9/2001. The US Stock market re-opened after the
9-11 attacks.
See also Islam and Middle East and Iraq for events
following �9-11� attacks
11/9/2001, The World
Trade Centre in New York was hit by two planes, bringing both its twin towers
down. A third plane hit the Pentagon in Washington, and a fourth crashed in
the Pennsylvania countryside after failing to reach perhaps Camp David or the
White House. Casualties were approximately 5,000. All four planes had been
hijacked by Muslim extremist suicide squads, but on the fourth plane,
passengers retook control from the hijackers. Osama Bin Laden, head of the
Al-Quaeda terrorist organisation, and based in Afghanistan under the Taliban
regime, was swiftly blamed.
Click here for image
from Financial Times, UK,
September 11 2001. Interesting symbolism relating to the NY attacks a few
hours later.
6/8/2001, President Bush
was warned that Osama
Bin Laden was planning a strike against the US and that this might
involve hijacking of aircraft.
7/6/1999, In
the USA, the FBI placed Osama bin Laden on its �Ten Most Wanted� list
and offered a US$ 5 million reward for his capture.
11/6/2001, In the US, Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma
City bombing.
16/11/2000, Bill Clinton became the first US President to visit Vietnam.
8/11/2000, (1) In the controversial US Presidential
Elections, Republican George W Bush defeated Democrat Vice
President� Al Gore but the final result was
delayed for over a month because of a disputed vote count in Florida. The
Florida State Governor, Jebb Bush, ruled that
about 4,000 votes from poorer districts could not be counted as the holes in
the voting papers had not been completely punched through. This decision
favoured his brother, George Bush. The US Supreme Court upheld this
decision on 13/12/2001. It was later found that if these 4,000 votes had been
included, Democrat Al; Gore would have won the State and hence
the Presidency.
(2) Hillary Rodham
Clinton was elected to the US Senate
20/9/2000, The US Whitewater scandal
was officially over when a 3rd investigation also found insufficient evidence
to implicate President
Clinton in improper property dealings.
24/7/2000, A concert planned for Central Park, New York,
was cancelled due to the threat of West
Nile virus, carried by mosquitoes and birds. The virus had been detected in
New York in 1999 and appeared to have persisted over-winter.
16/5/2000, Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was
nominated for the US Senate by the New York Democratic Party.
14/5/2000, 750,000 people took part
in the Million Mom March in Washington DC. They wanted tougher gun laws, after
White supremacist Buford Furrow shot children at a Jewish
community centre in 1999.
30/11/1999, In
Seattle, a large-scale protest by the
anti-globalisation movement caught the authorities unaware and forced the
cancellation on a WTO meeting.
4/1999,
President
Clinton considered housing Kosovan refugees at Guantanamo
bay, but the idea was scrapped.
20/4/1999, US
teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took two submachine guns to Columbine High School, for an attack
planned for Hitler�s birthday. 15 children were killed or injured before the
two killed themselves.
22/3/1999, Jack Kevorkian,
pro-euthanasia doctor, went on trial for murder in Pontiac, Michigan.� He was later convicted of second-degree murder.
23/4/1998, James
Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King,
died.
15.0, President Clinton impeached over
Monica Lewinsky, acquitted, 1973-99
8/3/1999.
Monica
Lewisnky arrived in Britain for a book-signing tour, beginning at
Harrods.
12/2/1999,
President
Clinton
was acquitted at his impeachment
trial.
7/1/1999, The impeachment
trial of US President Bill Clinton began in Washington DC
18/12/1998, In the US, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President
Clinton.
19/11/1998,
The US Senate began impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton
over the Monica
Lewinsky affair.�
President Clinton was impeached on 19/12/1998.
21/9/1998, President Clinton
admitted on TV that he had had sex with Monica Lewinsky. He had
denied this in January 1998.
11/9/1998, In the US, the Starr Report into the Monica Lewinsky affair concluded that President Clinton had committed 11 impeachable
offences.
5/10/1998,
The US Congressional Committee debated whether to impeach president Clinton overt the Monica Lewinsky
affair, over allegations he had abused power and tampered with witnesses.
17/8/1998,
President Bill Clinton
gave evidence to a Grand Jury about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. He
admitted to �inappropriate physical contact� with Monica Lewinsky and apologised for
misleading people, including his wife.
21/1/1998,
US President
Clinton denied he had any sexual relationship with 24-year-old
White House intern, Monica
Lewinsky. Rumours had circulated in the Press of an 18-month
affair in 1995. There were
allegations that Clinton
had asked Lewinsky
to lie under oath and deny any affair with him.
23/7/1973, Monica Lewinsky, White
House intern, was born.
14.0, Unabomber, 1978-98
4/5/1998, Theodore
Kaczynski, the Unabomber, received 4 life
sentences.
22/1/1998, Theodore
Kaczynski, Unabomber, pleaded guilty and was
told he wpould serve life with no parole.
3/4/1996, Theodore Kaczynski, a former mathematics professor, was arrested and charged with being
the Unabomber. Overall he was
reckoned to have committed 16 bombings, killing 23. His motive was to persuade the world of the unsustainability of modern
technology as a threat to the planet.
20/2/1987, In Salt Lake City, USA, a bomb exploded in a computer store. This
attack by the Unabomber lead to the
most expensive manhunt in FBI history to date.
5/5/1982, Secretary Janet Smith in the computer
science department at Vanderbilt University was injured when she opened a
package from the Unabomber.
25/5/1978, The Unabomber set off his first
bomb, in the security section of Northwestern University, USA.
13.0, Timothy
McVeigh bombing, 1995-97
15/8/1997, Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to die by
lethal injection. He had killed 168 people.
2/6/1997,
Timothy
McVeigh was convicted on 15 charges of murder and conspiracy
for his role in the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P Murragh building in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.� On 13/6/1997 he
was sentenced to death.
10/8/1995, Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols were
indicted on 11 charges relating to the Oklahoma bombing.
19/4/1995. A car bomb in Oklahoma City killed 168 including 12 children. The bomb hidden in
a truck contained 4,000 lb of explosive and blew up in front of the Alfred P
Murrah Federal Building, where the Federal ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms) was housed, and also a children�s nursery. Timothy McVeigh was later
convicted of the bombing.
24/10/1996, Rioting in Florida after a Black youth, Tyron Lewis, was shot
dead by police.
27/7/1996, A nail
bomb exploded at the Atlanta Olympics, killing two people and injuring over
100.
11/6/1996, A damning US Senate report on the Whitewater
Affair accused Hillary Clinton of complicity in a� fraudulent land deal in Arkansas in the
1980s.
28/5/1996, Jim and
Susan McDougal, former business associates of President Clinton, were found guilty� of fraud and
conspiracy in the Whitewater scandal, involving property deals in Arkansas.
16/10/1995, The Million Man March was held in
Washington DC.� It was conceived by
Nation of Islam
leader Louis
Farrakhan.
21/5/1995, Les
Aspin, US Secretary of Defense, died.
11/5/1995, In New York City, 170 nations agreed to extend the nuclear non-proliferation treaty
indefinitely, without conditions.
24/3/1995. The House of
Representatives, USA, passed welfare reforms denying state benefits to immigrants, unmarried mothers, and those
who refused to work.
28/12/1994, James Woolsey, director of the
CIA, resigned after allegations that the organisation was vulnerable to double
agents.
12.0, OJ Simpson
chase and trial, 1994-95
3/10/1995, Former American football star OJ Simpson was
acquitted of the murder of his wife
24/1/1995, The trial of former US football star OJ Simpson,
for the murder of his wife, began.
17/6/1994, A car driven by former football star OJ Simpson was chased by
helicopters through Los Angeles. Simpson was later charged with murder.
11.0, USA global trade agreements,
1993-94
8/12/1994, US President
Clinton signed for the USA to agree to the Uruguay Round of the GATT
trade liberalisation agreement, This replaced GATT by the WTO in 1995.
1/1/1994, The North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into force.
17/11/1993. The US Congress voted for NAFTA.
8/11/1994. The Republicans gained control of the US Congress.
28/4/1994, CIA double agent Aldrich Ames was jailed for life
after pleading guilty to selling secrets to the USSR, later to Russia.
24/3/1994, Allegations made in US Congress that President
Clinton and his wife behaved improperly in dealings with the
Whitewater Development Corporation. Later on this was to prove electorally
damaging to President
Clinton.
3/2/1994, US President Clinton lifted trade sanctions
against Vietnam;
In December 1992 President Bush had allowed US companies to open offices in
Vietnam but the embargo meant they could not yet trade there.
21/1/1994, In the USA Lorena Bobbitt was cleared of malicious
wounding after cutting off her husband�s penis.
15/1/1994, In a Virginia, USA, Court, Lorena Bobbitt said she could
not remember the moment she cut off her husband�s penis, after an alleged rape
by him; she leaded temporary insanity. The member was successfully reattached
by surgeons.
14/1/1994, US President Clinton and Soviet President Boris Yeltsin
signed the |Kremlin Accords. Treaties aimed ending the preprogrammed targetimng
of nuclear missiles.
4/11/1993, A forest fire in the Santa Monica Mountains near
Los Angeles was finally brought under control. It had begun pon 2/11/1993,
killed 3, and destroyed 400 homes. Arsonists had lit many fires in the area..
3/10/1993, US troops fought large-scale land battles with
local militiamen in Mogadishu, Somalia.
23/8/1993, US
Police� raided singer Michael
Jackson�s home after a 13-year old boy made allegations of child
abuse.
19/4/1993. The siege at Waco, Texas, ended after 51
days. On 28/2/1993 the Branch Davidian
sect, led by David
Koresh, was visited by US Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
personnel to arrest Koresh for suspected firearms offences. Sect members opened
fire, killing four Federal Agents and injuring a dozen more. US government
troops and armoured cars surrounded the sect�s ranch. On 19 April the wooden
compound was set alight by cult members as troops fired tear gas into the
buildings. 86 people, including David Koresh and 17 children, died.
18/3/1993, Kenneth E Boulding, US economist and activist,
died (born 1910).
24/5/1994, 4 men convicted of bombing the New York Trade
centre were each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
26/2/1993. Bomb exploded beneath World Trade Centre, New
York. Six were killed and hundreds injured when a bomb exploded� in an underground car park, planted by Muslim
fundamentalists.
4/12/1992. US troops landed in Somalia. Rival warlord�s
factions were causing chaos on Somali capital Mogadishu and hundreds of
thousands were starving in the countryside. The US sent 28,000 troops to help
relief efforts, codenamed �Restore Hope�.
11/8/1992. The biggest
shopping mall in the USA opened in Minnesota. It had over 300 stores,
covering 4.2 million square feet.
28/5/1992. The US prison population reached a record high of 823,414. One in three
was being held for a drugs-related offence.
5/4/1992. Samuel Moore Walton, born 29/3/1918, founder of Wal-Mart, died.
26/3/1992. Mike Tyson was sentenced to 10 years in jail
after being found guilty of rape.
10.0, US peace dividend, defence cuts, 1990-93
13/5/1993, The USA
decided to discontinue the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), also known as
�Star Wars�.
29/1/1992, US President Bush announced a US$50 package of
defence cuts, as part of the peace dividend�.
31/7/1991, Presidents Gorbachev (USSR) and Bush
(USA) signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START 1. However the Soviet
Union collapsed in December 1991, before the Treaty was ratified. A START II
Treaty was subsequently signed and ratified.
15/3/1991, Albania and the USA restored diplomatic
relations after a gap of 52 years.
12/12/1990, US President George Bush agreed to send US$ 1,000 million food aid to the Soviet Union.
30/11/1990, US President George Bush proposed a US-Iraq
meeting to avoid war.
21/11/1990. A
declaration of the end of the Cold War was signed in Paris.
16/10/1991, In the worst mass shooting in the US to date,
George Hennard, an unemployed 35 year old from Texas, killed 23 people and
wounded a further 20 in Luby�s Cafeteria.
15/11/1990, President Bush signed the Clean Air Act 1990.
5/8/1990. 200 US Marines arrived in Liberia to rescue
US citizens caught in the civil war there.
15/4/1990, Greta Garbo died in New York, after some 50
years of living a reclusive life after her 1940s Hollywood fame.
26/1/1990, Lewis Mumford, US historian (born 19/10/1895)
died.
9.0, Noriega arrested, 1989-90
16/11/1990, Manuel Noriega claimed the US had denied him a
fair trial.
3/1/1990, Noriega surrendered to US law enforcement; he was flown to
Miami and indicted on drugs charges.
30/12/1989, The US and the Vatican were negotiating over ending
the refuge of ex-dictator Manuel Noriega, who had fled to the Vatican
Embassy in Panama City to avoid capture
and extradition to the USA. At one stage the US lost patience and played rock
music at full volume outside the Embassy continuously from loudspeakers erected
by the US forces.
24/12/1989, Deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega gave himself up to the Papal
Nuncio in Panama City, having dodged US troops trying to capture him.
21/12/1989. The USA invaded Panama and ousted General Noriega. Noriega sought refuge in the
Vatican Mission, where he remained until 3/1/1990. He then surrendered to US
forces.
12/12/1989, New York heiress Leona Helmsley was fined US$ 7
million and sentenced to 4 years prison for tax evasion. She had said �only
little people pay taxes�.
14/9/1989, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada.
14/6/1989, Ronald Reagan was given a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth.
20/4/1989, A gun turret on US battleship Iowa exploded,
killing 47 sailors.
12/4/1989, Abbie Hoiffman, US political activist, died.
14/3/1989, In the USA, the Bush administration announced a
ban on the import of semi-automatic assault rifles.
23/2/1989, The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee rejected,
11�9, President
Bush's nomination of John Tower for Secretary of Defense.
22/2/1989, Death of Aldo Jacuzzi, American manufacturer of the
eponymous baths.
20/1/1989. George Herbert Walker Bush was sworn in as 41st US President.
8.0, Iran-Contra affair, 1983-89
5/7/1989,
In the US, Colonel Oliver North was fined US$ 150,000 and given a suspended prison sentence for his
role in the Iran-Contra affair.
24/3/1989, US Congress agreed to renew a US$ 40 million aid programme for the
Right-wing Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua.
Funding ceased due to the Iran-Contra scandal.
3/3/1989, Robert McFarlane
was fined $20,000, plus two years�
probation, for his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
30/12/1988, In the USA, Colonel Oliver North subpoenaed Presidents Ronald Reagan
and George Bush to testify in the
Iran-Contra trial.
18/11/1987, US
Congress accused Reagan of failing to uphold the laws of the USA, in the
Iran-Conttra Affair, since he was responsible as President for the illegal
actions of his aides.
3/2/1988, In the
USA, the Democrat-controlled House of Democrats rejected President Reagan�s request for
US$36.25 million to support the Nicaraguan Contras.
29/9/1987,� John M Poindexter resigned from the US Navy over
the Iran-Contra affair.
12/8/1987, Reagan admitted that US
Government policy on the Iran-Contra affair was �out of control�
3/8/1987, The US Irangate hearings ended.
5/5/1987, In the USA, Congressional hearings began into the Iran-Contra Affair.
29/1/1987, The Tower Report,
commissioned by the US Senate, asserted that the Reagan administration had misled Congress in the
Iran-Contra Affair.
25/11/1986. US Vice-Admiral
Pointdexter and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver
North were dismissed from the Security Council after revelations that
money from arms sales to Iran had been channelled to Nicaraguan Contra
guerrillas. Weapons were covertly sold to Iran to secure the release of 7 US
hostages held by pro-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon, and the profits from the
sales diverted to back Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
7/11/1986, Lebanese
magazine Ash Shiraa revealed that the USA had sold arms to Iran to try and persuade
Iranian-backed terrorists in Lebanon to free Westerrn hostages. It was later
also revealed that fundsa from these sales were remitted� to Contra forces in Nicaragua.
25/6/1986, The US
Congress approved US$ 100 million aid to the Nicaraguan Contras (later accused
of drug running) in their fight against the Sandinista Government.
18/7/1985, Congress
reined back President
Reagan�s support for the Contras in Nicaragua, stating that he can
now only send them �non-lethal aid�.
4/5/1983,
President Reagan affirmed his backing for the Right-wing
Contras in their battle against the Sandinistas.
7.0, 200th anniversary State
celebrations, 1987-91
4/3/1991, Vermont celebrated the 200th anniversary of
its statehood.
29/5/1990, Rhode Island celebrated the 200th anniversary
of its statehood.
21/11/1989, North Carolina celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
26/7/1988, New York celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
25/6/1988, Virginia celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
21/6/1988, New Hampshire celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
23/5/1988, South Carolina celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
6/2/1988, Massachusetts celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
9/1/1988, Connecticut celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
2/1/1988, Georgia celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
18/12/1987� New Jersey celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
12/12/1987, Pennsylvania celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
7/12/1987, Delaware celebrated the 200th
anniversary of its statehood.
7/5/1988, Boston saw the first meeting of people who claimed to have been abducted by
aliens.
6/5/1987, William J Casey, CIA Director, died.
31/3/1987, In the
�Baby M� case, the US Supreme Court denied parental rights to surrogate
mothers.
19/2/1987, The US
lifted sanctions on Poland.
22/1/1987, Pennsylvania politician R Budd Dwyer committed suicide by shooting
himself on national TV, after being convicted of bribery and corruption
charges.
7/11/1986, In the USA, the Simpson-Mazzoli
Act legalised the residential status of millions of illegal immigrants; the
Act was signed by President Reagan this day.
4/11/1986. Democrats
won control of the US Senate.
15/4/1986. The USA launched air strikes against Libya, in retaliation for Libya�s alleged support
of terrorism, and a bombing in a Berlin nightclub. Libya had also fired two
missiles at the US radar base on Lampedusa; both missed. Benghazi and Tripoli
were bombed, killing at least 100 people, including Gaddaffi�s 15-month-old adopted
daughter, Hanna.
The departure of the US planes from British airfields caused widespread
protests in the UK. On 17/4/1986 two British hostages in Lebanon were killed in
retaliation for the US raids.
8/4/1986, Clint Eastwood was elected Mayor of his native
city, Carmel, California.
27/2/1986, The United States Senate allowed its debates to be
televised on a trial basis.
25/1/1985, In a case
that divided American society, New York subway vigilante Bernard Goetze (born 7 November 1947) was told
by a Grand Jury that he would not face charged of murder for shooting four Black youths at close range on
22 December 1984; he would be tried for illegal possession of handguns. Goetze
served 8 months of a 1-year sentence on the handgun charge; one of his victims,
rendered a quadriplegic by the shooting, was awarded US$ 43 million in a civil
judgement against Goetze.
26/7/1984, G H Gallup, US survey pioneer, died aged 82.
21/7/1984. The man who popularised jogging, James J Fixx,
had a heart attack and died whilst out running in Vermont, aged 52.
1/5/1984, Reagan concluded a visit to China.
US monetary
policy 1982-86
22/10/1986, US President Reagan radically simplified the
tax system, reducing the 15 tax brackets to just 2 (15% and 28%). Tax breaks
for the wealthy were removed and the lower-paid removed from the tax system.
However there were more taxes on business, which then raised prices.
20/4/1983, In the US, President Reagan delayed inflation-linked
increases in welfare payments for 6 months and proposed raising the minimum
retirement age to 67 by 2027.
2/10/1982, Paul Volcker, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve
System, expressed concerns about the damage to the US economy from
anti-inflation policies, with higher unemployment and interest rates.
Monetarism was abandoned, and after peaking at 10.8% in 11/1982, US
unemployment began to fall. Later, lower inflation and interest rates created a
recovery in US shares.
19/8/1982, US Congress approved a reversal of earlier
tax-cutting measures.
29/9/1981, President Reagan said he wanted to implement a
further US$ 13 billion spending cuts.
13/8/1981, US President Reagan signed a Bill implementing
the biggest tax� and Government spending
cuts in history. Reagan rejected the demand-side economics of Keynes,
in favour of supply-side economics, a policy also favoured by Mrs Thatcher
of the UK.
Protectionism
17/4/1987, US President Reagan announced a 100% tariff on
some Japanese imports, as the US trade deficit ballooned to US$ 16.5 billion by
July 1987.
11/6/1982, The USA moved towards a protectionist policy,
placing tariffs on imported steel to protect its own steel industry.
US Defence
policy, arms reduction talks with USSR, 1981-87
8/12/1987. Gorbachev and Reagan signed an arms reduction
treaty, to eliminate medium range nuclear missiles from Europe.
22/10/1983, The announcement by Washington that Pershing II
and Cruise Missiles were to be deployed in Europe precipitated large
anti-nuclear demonstrations in Britain, Germany and Italy.
23/3/1983. President Reagan proposed his �Star Wars� missile defence system,
calling the Soviet Union an �evil empire�.
2/2/1983. The US and USSR began START (Strategic Arms
Reduction Talks) in Geneva.
12/6/1982, 800,000 marched for peace in New York City.
6/2/1982, US President Reagan asked for an increased
military budget and for cuts in social expenditure. Congress approved a 6% rise
in defence spending but the Boland Amendment (8/12/1982) banned the use of
defence money to destabilise the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua.
30/11/1981. The US and USSR
began arms talks in Geneva.
9/8/1981, In the USA, President
Reagan announced the decision to proceed with the neutron bomb.
Anti-Trades
Union policy
4/2/1983, US President Reagan condemned the violence
associated with a strike of truck drivers.
5/8/1981, President Reagan fired 11,359 striking air
traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
11/4/1980, New York City was hit by a
transport workers strike, which lasted 11 days.
Racial
discrimmination
17/1/1984, The Reagan-nominated US Commission on Civil Rights
declared that numerical quotas for the promotion of African-Americans and
others ;�may merely constitute another form of discrimination�.
2/7/1980, The US Supreme Court ruled that Federal Government
could use racial quotas to accomplish �reverse discrimination� when awarding
contracts, enforcing minimum quotas for minorities.
25/10/1983. 2,000 US Marines invaded Grenada to restore
order after, on 19/10/1983, Grenada�s army had murdered the Prime Minister (Maurice Bishop)
and taken power. Britain opposed the US invasion. The US said it
had saved Grenada from becoming a Soviet-Cuban colony.
2/11/1982, Democrats made large gains in US mid-term
elections. The Republicans retained control of the Senate.
7/6/1982, Graceland, the mansion in Memphis, Tennessee where
Elvis
Presley lived until his death in 1977, was opened to the public.
8/4/1981, Omar Bradley, US senior army officer, died
aged 88.
30/3/1981. President Reagan, 70 years old, survived an assassination attempt by John Hinckley. He was wounded, a bullet in the
left lung, outside Washington�s Hilton Hotel. The shooter, John Hinckley III,
arrested at the spot, had used a .22 calibre shot; had he used a .45 the
bullet, which lodged just 3 inches from Reagan�s heart, would have killed him.
18/1/1981, BASE jumping was founded by Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield
as they jumped off of the 72nd floor of the Texas Commerce Tower in Houston and
parachuted to the ground. The pair had previously leapt from an antenna, a
bridge and a cliff.
25/9/1980, Charles Henry Elston, US Representative from
Ohio (born 1/1/1891) died.
27/2/1980, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US
President Bill Clinton, was born.
23/1/1980, President
Carter initiated the Carter Doctrine � that Middle Eastern oil reserves were of
strategic importance to the US and that any attempt by another power to take
control in the region would be met by US military action. This Doctrine was
adopted by President
Reagan, leading to the Gulf War.
19/1/1980, William O
Douglas, judge in the US Supreme Court and civil rights defender
(born 16/10/1898 in Maine, Minnesota) died.
3/11/1979, Clashes between Communist Worker�s party members and Klu Klux Klan
neo-Nazis in Greensboro�, North Carolina, USA. 5 Communists were shot dead.
1/10/1979. The USA handed back control of the
Canal Zone to Panama.
7/7/1979, China was granted �most favoured nation� status by
the USA, giving it ;lower tariff rates on its imports to the US.
18/6/1979. US President Carter
and USSR President
Brezhnev signed the
SALT 2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) in Vienna.
8/5/1979, Talcott Parsons, US sociologist, died aged 76.
5/4/1979, US President Carter established an Energy Security Fund to help US
consumers meet fuel costs, and to promote alternative energy and more use of
public transport.
26/1/1979, Nelson Rockerfeller, Republican politician and
vice President to Gerald Ford, died.
3/1/1979, Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotel Group and once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor,
died.
1/1/1979. Diplomatic
relations were established between China and the USA.
15/12/1978, Cleveland,
Ohio, became the first major US city
to go into default since the great Depression, under mayor Dennis Kucinich.
3/11/1978. Vietnam and
the USA signed a 25-year treaty of friendship and co-operation in economic,
scientific and technical endeavours.
7/8/1978, President Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency at Love Canal.
7/4/1978. US President
Carter pulled back from
building a neutron bomb.
14/1/1978, Kurt Godel, Austrian-American logician, died aged 71.
13/1/1978, Hubert Humphrey, Vice President to Lyndon Johnson,
died.
10/1977, The US Department of Energy was created.
7/9/1977, A treaty between the USA and Panama was signed; the
US agreed to give Panama control of the Canal by 2000.
4/6/1977, Two people died during violence on� Puerto Rican Day in Chicago.
21/4/1977, US President Carter proposed a national energy
conservation plan to discourage waste and achoieve greater efficiency.
25/1/1977, The US Supreme Court reversed a previous decision
91966) and ruled that a suspect who has not been formally arrested can be
interrogated without being informed of their legal rights.
21/1/1977, Jimmy Carter issued a pardon for those who evaded
the draft for the Vietnam
War.
18/8/1976, In North Korea, at Panmunjom, two US soldiers were killed whilst trying to chop down a tree in
the demilitarised zone; the tree had obscured their view.
6/6/1976, Paul Getty, American oil tycoon, reputed to be
the richest man on earth, died aged
83, at his home, Sutton
Place, outside London. He was worth around US$ 4 billion.
5/4/1976. The multi-millionaire Howard Hughes died on his
private jet going to a hospital at Houston, Texas leaving a fortune of US$
2,000 million. He was aged 71.
1/5/1975, The US Securities and Exchange Commission ordered
an abolition of the fixed commission rate on Wall Street. This increased the
number of investors who came forward, meaning more money was available for
shares trading.
23/2/1975, In response to the energy crisis, daylight saving
time began two months early in the USA.
14/1/1975, The House Committee on Internal Security (formerly
HUAC, House Committee on Un-American Activities) was formally terminated on
January 14, 1975, the day of the opening of the 94th Congress. The Committee's
files and staff were transferred on that day to the House Judiciary Committee.
6/1/1975, Burton K. Wheeler, 92, U.S. Senator, died.
6.0, Watergate
scandal 1971-75
14/3/1975, Presidential aide Fred de la Rue was sentenced to
6 months imprisonment for his part on the Watergate cover up.
28/2/1975. The Watergate scandal continued as 3 Nixon
aides were sentenced for their role.
21/2/1975. Those convicted of offences in the Watergate affair received sentences of between 30 months and
8 years.
1/1/1975, In the USA, aides of President Nixon, H R Haldeman,
John D
Erlichman and John H Mitchell were found guilty of Watergate offences. On 21/2/1975 they were sentenced to
between 2 � and 8 years in prison.
8/9/1974, President Nixon�s successor, Gerald Ford,
issued Nixon an unconditional pardon for any crimes
committed whilst in office.
9/8/1974. Gerald Ford sworn in as the 38th President of the USA.� He succeeded Richard Nixon, who had resigned
over Watergate, hence Ford became the first
President not chosen by the US people in an election.
8/8/1974. Richard Nixon announced his resignation as
US President after his implication in the Watergate scandal. President
Ford granted a pardon to Nixon for any offences he might have committed
in the Watergate affair.� Nixon was
the first American President to resign. See 9/5/1974. President Gerald Ford took office as the 38th
president. He was the first person not to have been elected by ballot to the
Presidency or Vice Presidency.
7/8/1974, In the USA, the Electoral Reform Act was
passed, which aimed to limit the contribution of large individual donations
towards Presidential election campaigns. However large sums could still be
raised through Political Action Committees.
5/8/1974. President Nixon admitted his complicity in the
Watergate affair. See 27/7/1974 and 8/8/1974.
30/7/1974, The House Judiciary Committee voted to
impeach US President Nixon on three counts. 1) Obstruction of justice, 2)
Failure to uphold laws, and 3) Refusal to produce material subpoenaed by the
committee.
27/7/1974.� A
Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon
for obstructing justice in the Watergate affair.
24/7/1974, The US Supreme Court ruled that the White
House Watergate tapes must be handed over to a special prosecutor.
12/7/1974, the US John Erlichman, former Director of Domestic
Affairs at the White House, was found guilty of lying over the Watergate tapes.
9/5/1974. Impeachment proceedings were opened against President Nixon
� see 2/3/1974 and 8/8/1974.
2/3/1974. A USA Grand Jury decided Richard Nixon
was involved in the Watergate cover up see 9/5/1974.
1/3/1974. 7 of President
Nixon�s advisors were arrested over charges to obstruct justice in
the Watergate investigation.
9/11/1973. Six Watergate burglars
jailed in the US.
1/11/1973.. The Watergate Tapes case
continued with President Richard Nixon in Washington.
30/10/1973, Preliminary impeachment hearings in the
Watergate scandal began. Some tapes were still missing, including ones covering
the crucial period of allegations.
20/10/1973, Sixteen impeachment orders were raised in
the US House of Representatives after President Nixon ordered the removal from
office of a special prosecutor who had refused to do a deal over the Watergate tapes, see 16/7/1973 and 27/7/1974.
12/10/1973, The US Court of Appeals ordered Richard Nixon
to hand over the Watergate Tapes.
23/10/1973, The US House of Representatives ordered a
judicial committee to consider the evidence for impeaching President Nixon.
16/7/1973, A former White House aide revealed that all conversations in the White House had been recorded, at President
Nixon�s request, see 25/6/1973. Nixon flouted several subsequent
court orders to release the tapes, see 20/10/1973.
25/6/1973, US President
Nixon�s former legal counsel, John Dean, gave evidence at the Ervin Committee that directly
contradicted Nixon�s statement regarding Watergate that he had
made on 22/5/1973, see also 16/7/1973.
22/5/1973, President Nixon
admitted concealing evidence of wrongdoing regarding Watergate
(see 17/5/1973 and 25//6/1973), but denied knowing of the burglary before it
took place.
17/5/1973. US Senate
hearings over Watergate
began. See 30/1/1973 and 22/5/1973.
7/5/1973,
The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward,
for exposing the Watergate Scandal.
30/4/1973. 4 of Nixon�s aides resigned over Watergate.
18/4/1973, Nixon told Haldemann, a White House aide,
to destroy the Watergate tapes. Had he done so, Nixon
would probably have avoided having to resign.
17/4/1973, President Nixon dropped the ban on
White House staff appearing before Senate Committee hearings on Watergate.
16/4/1973. Criminal
indictments were expected to be issued against senior members of President
Nixon�s staff over the Watergate affair.
30/1/1973, G Gordon and James McCord were convicted of
burglary, wire-tapping, and attempted bugging of the Democratic Party
headquarters at the Watergate Building in
Washington. The men were part of the Campaign to Re Elect the President (CREEP)
campaign (President
Nixon). See 17/6/1972 and 17/5/1973.
15/9/1972,
Seven men were indicted in Washington over the Watergate
burglary on 17/6/1972.� They were charged
with burglary, wiretapping and conspiracy. Five of the seven were arrested at
the scene, attempting to install bugging devices. All seven were members of the
Republican committee to re-elect President
Nixon.
1/8/1972, Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post
started a series of reports on a link between the Watergate break in and the
Committee for the Re-Ele3ction of the President (CREEP)
19/6/1972, President Nixon�s
campaign manager, having initially denied, on 18/6, any connection to the
Watergate burglary, now admitted that one of the burglars, Bernard Barker, had met Howard Hunt, who until 29/3/1972 had been
a consultant to the Presidential counsel, Charles Colson.
17/6/1972. American
biggest political scandal, Watergate, began when five burglars were caught breaking
into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office
complex, Washington DC, with photographic and surveillance equipment. See
30/1/1973.
28/5/1971, US President
Nixon ordered John Haldeman to do more wiretapping and
espionage against the Democrats. This order was recorded on tape.
14/2/1971, President Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White
House. It was on this system that the Watergate tapes were recorded.
14/2/1944, Carl Bernstein,
the journalist who exposed the Watergate scandal along with Bob Woodward, was
born.
15/11/1974, US President Gerald Ford confirmed that he would stand for
re-election in 1976.
3/4/1974, President
Nixon agreed to pay US$ 432,787 outstanding income tax.
4/2/1974, Heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped.
17/3/1974, The Arab oil
embargo, imposed om the US in 1973 in retaliation for US support for Israel
in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, was lifted.
6/1/1974, In response to the energy crisis, the USA started Daylight Savings Time almoist 4
months before usual; many children had to leave for school before sunrise.
2/1/1974, In response to the Oil Crisis, the USA imposed a
national 55 mph (88 kph) speed limit on its major roads.
14/12/1973. John Paul Getty II was freed by kidnappers
after his grandfather paid a US$ 750,000 ransom.
10/10/1973, US Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after
pleading guilty to tax evasion charges.
15/7/1973. Paul Getty III was kidnapped
26/10/1973, US President Nixon considered an attack on the Soviet Union,
after hearing that the USSR was arming Arab nations in the Middle East.
4/5/1973, The Sears Tower in Chicago, then the world�s tallest office building at 1,454 feet and 110 storeys
was �topped out� when the highest storey was completed.
23/4/1973, Henry Kissinger, head of the US National
Security Council, called for a new �Atlantic Charter� governing relations
between the US, Europe and Japan.
28/3/1973, Marlon Brando refused an Oscar because of
Hollywood�s abuses of the American
Indians.
28/2/1973, US Indians took hostages at Wounded Knee.
They challenged the US Government to �repeat the massacre of Sioux Indians�
that happened there over 80 years earlier.
13/2/1973, The USA
devalued the Dollar by 10%, causing the price of gold to rise to US$42.22.
29/1/1973, The USA�s balance
of payments deficit for 1972 was estimated at US$ 6 � 7 billion; the Dollar collapsed.
26/11/1973, The Getty family agreed to pay US$ 1 million in
ransom for their kidnapped son Paul, whose ear had been posted to them.
5.0, USA and USSR signed Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty, 1972
3/10/1972, The US and
USSR signed SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) accords, limiting submarine
based and land based missiles.
29/5/1972. Brezhnev and Nixon signed SALT-2 (Strategic
Arms Limitation Treaty).
22/5/1972. US President Richard Nixon arrived in Moscow, the first visit to the Soviet Union by an
American President.
26/9/1972. President Nixon
opened the Museum of Immigration, at
the base of the Statue of Liberty, New York.
8/7/1972, US President Nixon
announced that the USSR was to buy US$ 750 million worth of US grain
over the next 3 years.
15/5/1972, George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, was shot
and injured by a White assailant, Arthur Bremer, aged 21. Wallace, known for his racist
and segregationist policies (see 2/9/1963), was campaigning for the Democratic
Party�s Presidential nomination.
2/5./1972, J Edgar Hoover, American founder of and head
of the FBI, died in Washington DC.
21/2/1972, US President Nixon landed in China to forge links
with Prime Minister� Chou En Lai and Chairman Mao Tse Tung.
China
still objected to US support for the Taiwan regime.
7/2/1972, In the USA, President Nixon signed the Federal Election
Campaign Act. This required that all electoral campaign contributions be
declared, and limited spending on media campaigning to 10 cents per person of
voting age in the candidate�s constituency.
4.0, US involvement in Vietnam, Cambodia,
1961-75
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
30/4/1975. Saigon surrendered to the North Vietnamese, so ending the 15-year Vietnam War. This had been the longest
conflict of the 20th century.
29/4/1975. A US
helicopter evacuated Americans and a few lucky Vietnamese from the roof of the
US Embassy in Saigon to a nearby US warship a day before Saigon fell to the Vietcong. The
picture of the helicopter evacuation became an iconic symbol of US humiliation
in Vietnam.
25/4/1975, The
Australian Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, shut as North Vietnamese forces closed
in.
23/4/1975, US President Ford
announced that US involvement in Vietnam was to end. US forces began the final
evacuation of personnel from Saigon by aeroplane, see 28 and 29/4/1973.
7/1/1975, North
Vietnamese forces captured the southern province of Phuoc Long (see
29/3/1973). There was no reaction from the US. On 10/3/1975 North Vietnam
captured the strategic town of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. Within
four days South
Vietnam decided to abandon the entire Central Highlands to
concentrate on the defence of Saigon. This strategic withdrawal became a
rout, woith hundreds of thousands of cicilians, and fleeing soldiers, clogging
the roads as the Communists
advanced. By 1/4/1975 half of South Vietnam was occupied by the North and
the South
Vietnamese army was disintegrating. US Congress had no intention of
further aid to the South; they did not even intend to organise an evacuation of
US citizens and pro-US Vietnamese, instead hoping to persuade the North to stop
short of total conquest and accept a coalition government in Saigon.� President Thieu of South Vietnam resigned on
28/4/1975 and was replaced by the neutralist General Duong Van Minh. By then
North Vietnamese forces were in the suburbs of Saigon. A few fortunate
personnel were evacuated from the roof of the US Embassy by helicopter (see
29/4/1975).� However in the last-minute
chaos nobody thought to destroy the records of South Vietnamese who had
supported the US. On 30/4/1975 a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the
gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon and a soldier raised the North
Vietnamese flag. Then the event was repeated for the benefit of TV cameras who
had missed the original. Meanwhile in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge had entered
Phnom Penh and begub deporting hundreds of thousands of its population to the
killing fields. The defeat of the US was
total and complete.
5/1/1975, The Cambodian
capital, Phnom Penh, came under siege by Khmer Rouge forces (led by Pol Pot), despite heavy
US military aid to the Cambodian leader, Lon Nol.
31/7/1973, US
Congress voted to cut off funds for US military action anywhere in Indochina.
16/4/1973.
US bombing
raids resumed on Laos.
4.0(a) USA pulls troops out of Vietnam, due to
economic and domestic pressures 1973
29/3/1973, US
pulled its last troops out of South Vietnam. The quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC worsened the
finances of the USA. Nixon was in trouble with Watergate
and Congress reasserted its power over US foreign policy. The War Powers Resolution of November 1973
removed the President�s power to make war without prior Congressional approval,
nullifying Nixon�s
promise to send troops to support South Vietnam if the Communists threatened
again. In 1974 Congress slashed the budget for the war in Vietnam. US influence also
declined in Cambodia,
where extensive bombing had disrupted society and promoted the growth of the
Communist Khmer Rouge, backed by Prince Sihanouk.
Many Cambodians regarded Sihanouk as their legitimate leader, and by
1974 Sihanouk�s US-backed replacement, General Lon Nol,
controlled just one third of Cambodia. In Laos an extensive bombing
campaign to destroy the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, a network of routes used to supply the Communist Vietcong, simply resulted in the strengthening of the Pathet Lao, the Laotian Communists.
Throughout 1974 the North Vietnamese quietly built up strength in the border
regions of South Vietnam, and on 7/1/1975 they captured the South Vietnamese
province of Phuoc Long.
21/2/1973, A ceasefire
agreement was signed in Vientiane, capital of Laos, between the Pathet Lao
Communist guerrillas and the Lao Government.�
By now the Communists occupied much of Laos.� See 2/12/1975.
12/2/1973, The first
group of American POWs was released from North Vietnam.
27/1//1973. The war in Vietnam
ended, as President Nixon signed the ceasefire agreement in Paris. One
million combatants had been killed. The last US troops left
Vietnam on 29/3/1972. This was just days before the Watergate scandal erupted. US astronauts were preparing for
the launch of Skylab. However fighting later continued between North and South Vietnam, see 30/4/1975.15/1/1973. Bombing of North Vietnam halted by Nixon, as he ordered a ceasefire. This followed an intensive US bombing campaign of Hanoi
over Christmas 1972, in which a hospital was destroyed and 1,600 civilians
killed as 36,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, leaving much of it in
ruins. US Congress was hostile to
further bombing raids.
18/12/1972. Heavy bombing
of Hanoi by US B-52s.
12/12/1972, South Vietnamese President Thieu rejected US peace proposals (see 20/11/1972).
22/11/1972. The first US
B-52 bomber was shot down over Vietnam.
20/11/1972, North Vietnamese peace negotiators rejected US peace proposals (see
12/12/1972).
11/8/1972, The last US ground combat forces left Vietnam. However more than
43,000 US air force and support personnel remained.
28/6/1972, US
President Nixon announced that no more draftees would be sent to Vietnam.
15/4/1972, US bombers made heavy raids on North Vietnam.
4.0(b) North Vietnam steps up military
activity against the South. In USA, Pentagon Papers leaked, 1971-2
30/3/1972, North Vietnam launched a major attack on the South. On 15/4/1972 the US made heavy bombing raids on
North Vietnam.
North Vietnam abandoned guerrilla tactics
and launched a major conventional invasion, with tanks and heavy artillery. The
South Vietnamese city of Quang Tri fell on 1/5/1972 and South Vietnam seemed to
have lost the war. However the US responded with massive air power and smart
bombs. North Vietnamese forces were driven back to the dividing line and Hanoi proposed peace talks in October 1972.
Under domestic pressure to end US involvement in Vietnam, Nixon could not refuse this offer.
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
29/12/1971, In the USA, David Ellsberg, an employee of the Defense Department who
had leaked the Pentagon Papers to
the New York Times (see 13/6/1971), was indicted for espionage and conspiracy. These papers revealed the full extent of US
involvement in Vietnam from the late 1940s through to the 1960s.
26/12/1971. The US resumed bombing of North Vietnam.
22/9/1971, In the USA, Captain Ernest Medina was acquitted of responsibility for the My
Lai Massacre, Vietnam, 1968.
13/6/1971, The New York Times began publishing the
Pentagon Papers, revealing the flawed policy decisions over the period from the
late 1940s through to the late 1960s that led to US involvement in the Vietnam
War. These papers had been leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg, an employee
at the US Defense department (see 29/12/1971).
7/4/1971, US President
Nixon promised to withdraw 100,000 troops from Vietnam by Christmas.
13/2/1971, South
Vietnamese troops, with US airctaft and artillery backing, entered Laos.
29/4/1971, US combat
deaths in Vietnam now exceeded 45,000.
31/3/1971, In the USA, Lt. William Calley was convicted of murdering 20 civilians in
the My Lai massacre, Vietnam, 1968. However he was freed (6/4/1971) by
executive order of President Nixon.
31/12/1970, US Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution (see 7/8/1964), thereby denying President Nixon any further authority to widen the
Vietnam War. Nixon, however, ordered further offensives. See 27/1/1973.
29/9/1970, The U.S. Congress
gave President Richard Nixon authority to sell arms to Israel.
7/9/1970, In the USA, a Labor Day rally calling for an end to US involvement in
the Vietnam War was attended by a number of high-profile
speakers including actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.
4.0(c) US failed intervention in Cambodia,
1970
29/6/1970,
US troops completed their withdrawal
from Cambodia.
9/5/1970,
Protests in Washington DC, USA, against US intervention in Cambodia.
4/5/1970. 4 students were shot dead at Kent State University, Ohio. There had been a
wave of campus protests over the entry of US troops into Cambodia. On 4/5/1970 between
1,500 and 3,000 students gathered on the campus at Kent University,
contravening an order by Ohio State Governor banning all protests, peaceful or
otherwise. At about midday, the National Guard began to use tear gas to break
up the demonstration. Some of the students picked up the canisters and hurled
them back, and also threw stones. The Guardsmen then opened fire without
warning, killing two male and two female students who were not actually
involved in the demonstration.
12/11/1969, News of
the My Lai massacre (see 16/3/1968) of civilians, by US troops in Vietnam
during the Tet Offensive, was finally broken to a news reporter, Sy Hersh. The
news helped raise further anti-war sentiment in the USA.
15/10/1969, The
biggest anti-Vietnam-War demonstration to date took place in America. The war so far had cost the USA the lives
of 40,000 servicemen, over 8 years.
12/10/1969, US President
Nixon predicted that the Vietnam War would be over in 3 months.
16/9/1969. President Nixon
announced the withdrawal of a further 36,000 troops from Vietnam by mid-December.
12/9/1969. President Nixon continued B52 bombing raids on Vietnam.
4/8/1969, US
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger began secret talks with North
Vietnam in Paris.
8/6/1969. President Nixon announced that 25,000
US troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of August.
4.0(d) President Nixon succeeds President
Johnson, 1969
31/10/1968. President
Johnson of the USA ordered a
total halt to US bombing of North Vietnam.
This was a move intended to help Humphrey (see 29/8/1968) win the Presidential
election, as it could make the Vietnam War more acceptable to US voters.
However the voters were too much against the War for this, and Republican Nixon
won.
27/10/1968, Violent anti-Vietnam
war protests outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.
29/8/1968, At a
controversial meeting in Chicago, USA, there was a heated televised debate
between Eugene
McCarthy, who favoured pulling out of the Vietnam War, and Hubert Humphrey
who wanted to continue the battle. Anti-War protestors gathered in Chicago
where they fought with backers of the war effort, the latter faction sanctioned
by the Mayor of Chicago. The Democrats chose Humphrey as their Presidential
candidate.
10/5/1968. Peace talks began between the USA and North Vietnam in Paris.
The talks failed because North Vietnam
wanted the country unified under the Vietcong, whilst the United States wanted
North Vietnam to withdraw from the South which would remain an independent
state. Eventually the North agreed to Southern independence and the US agreed
not to demand the withdrawal of Communist forces from the North. However the North was to invade the South
two years later as US forces withdrew from the South.
7/4/1968, US President
Johnson ordered a slowdown in the bombing of North Vietnam.
31/3/1968,
Democrat President
Johnson of the USA, discouraged by Liberal anti-Vietnam War Senator Eugene
McCarthy�s performance against him (see 29/8/1968), pulled out of
the race to secure Democrat nomination for the upcoming Presidential election.
17/3/1968, Violent
anti-Vietnam War demonstrations outside the US Embassy in London. 25,000
Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) marchers fought with police. The VSC, which
wanted a victory for North Vietnam, had been organised by the Trotskyist
International Marxist Group, whose members included Pat Jordan, Tariq Ali and
David Horowitz.
4.0(e) Execution of Nguyen Van Leun
and My Lai Massacre, US opinion turns against War, 1968
16/3/1968. The My Lai massacre; US
soldiers massacred over 500 Vietnamese civilians in a raid on hamlets in Son
My district, where Communist Vietcong rebels were suspected to be hiding out. US forces believed that 250
Vietcong guerrillas were hiding in My Lai and that all civilians would have
left for market. As the 30 US troops went in under the command of Lieutenant
William Calley they threw grenades and deployed flamethrowers on the
thatched roof huts; it was soon clear that only women, children and the elderly
were present. There was no counter fire. However a �contagion of slaughter� had
set in and the rape and murder continued. Senior US army officials turned a
blind eye to the event; only five people were ever court-martialled, with just
one, Lieutenant
Calley, found guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but
served 3 � years before release on parole. This event turned many civilians
within the US against the Vietnam War.
1/2/1968, The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by
South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen
Ngoc Loan was filmed by Eddie Adams. This footage helped swing public opinion against the Vietnam War.
12/9/1967. Governor
Reagan
called for an escalation of the Vietnam War.
15/4/1967. 100,000
protested against the Vietnam
War in New York.
4/4/1967, Martin Luther
King denounced the Vietnam War.
10/3/1967. The US
bombed industrial targets in North Vietnam.
3/3/1967, US
President Lyndon
B Johnson announced his plan to establish a draft lottery to send
gtroops to Vietnam.
26/2/1967, The US
stepped up the Vietnam war with an attack
on the Vietcong HQ.
For more events of Vietnam War see South East Asia
26/10/1966. US President
Johnson visited US troops in Vietnam.
19/10/1966, US President
Johnson began a tour of SW Pacific countries to bolster support
against North Vietnam. By end 1966, there were some 390,000 US troops in South
Vietnam.
5/7/1966. Dozens
of captured USA airmen in the Vietnam War were paraded through the streets of
Hanoi to shouts of �death to the American air pirates�.
3/7/1966. Anti-Vietnam war protests outside the US Embassy, London.
23/3/1966. In New
York, 20,000 people marched down Fifth Avenue demanding an end to the Vietnam War.
28/1/1966, US Senator J William Fulbright
challenged the legality of US involvement in Vietnam.
17/10/1965. Anti-Vietnam War protests in the UK and USA.
19/8/1965, US
troops destroyed a suspected Vietcong stronghold near Van Tuong.
28/7/1965. US President Lyndon
Johnson sent a further 50,000 ground troops to Vietnam. The US now had 175,000 troops in Vietnam.
29/6/1965, The first US military ground action began
in Vietnam.
4.0(f) Escalation of US
action in Vietnam, ground troops now sent in, 1965
8/6/1965, US
Congress authorised the use of ground
troops in combat in Vietnam. By end July, 125,000 US troops were in
Vietnam.
23/4/1965. Heavy US
air raids on North
Vietnam.
17/4/1965, US
students protested against US bombing in Vietnam.
4/4/1965. US jets
shot down by North
Vietnam.
22/3/1965, The US
Government admitted it had used chemical
weapons against the V|ietcong in the Vietnam War.
9/2/1965, The
first US combat troops arrived in South Vietnam.
11/12/1964, US President Johnson
announced a large increase in aid to South Vietnam.
5/8/1964, US
aircraft bombed North Vietnam in retaliation for the Maddox attack (2/8/1964).
22/12/1961, James Davis
became the first US casualty of the war in Vietnam.
11/5/1961, US President
Kennedy sent 400 Special Forces troops to conduct covert
anti-Communist operations in North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
10/12/1971, The John Sinclair Freedom Rally is held at the
University of Michigan. Performers included John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
12/10/1971, Dean Acheson, US statesman, died aged 78.
25/9/1971, Hugo LaFayette Black, US Supreme Court judge
who upheld civil rights, died (born 1886).
30/6/1971. The 26th amendment
to the US constitution was passed, lowering
the voting age from 21 to 18.
17/6/1971, Disneyland admitted its 100-millionth visitor, Valerie Suldo
of New Jersey.
25/4/1971, 200,000 protested in Washington DC against the
Vietnam War. 12,000 protestors were arrested over the following week.
10/2/1971, An earthquake, 6.6 on the Richter Scale, hit Los
Angeles, killing 64 people.
3/2/1971, Andrew Truxal, US academic, died aged 71.
29/12/1970, US President Nixon signed the Occupational
Safety and Health Act and established an agency to regulate safety at work.
17/11/1969, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) opened in
Helsinki between the USSR and USA (President Nixon). The talks had been proposed
for 19/6/1969 but suspended by the USA due to the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia.
15/8/1969. The
famous American rock festival, Woodstock, began. It was attended by 400,000.
18/7/1969.
Senator Edward Kennedy crashed his car into the Chappaquidick River on the
east coast of the USA. Kennedy escaped but his companion Mary Jo Kopechne
drowned. Kennedy didn�t report the incident for ten hours and was found guilty
of leaving the scene of an accident.
19/6/1969, US President Nixon suspended arms
limitation talks with the USSR due to the their invasion of Czechoslovakia.
11/6/1969, John Llewellyn Lewis, US Trades Union leader
(born 2/12/1880 in Lucas, Iowa), died.
28/2/1969, Dwight D Eisenhower,
US statesman, died aged 78.
23/2/1969, President Nixon
of the USA began a tour of European capitals.
22/2/1969. President Nixon arrived in Britain
for talks with Prime
Minister Harold Wilson.
22/12/1968, The captain and crew of the Pueblo were
released by the North
Koreans at Panmunjom.
21/11/1968, Baby Sheri Schroder was born with several birth
defects, in Love Canal, a
residential area of Niagara Falls. Her birth spurs on an investigation which
uncovered one of the worst pollution svcandals in US history.
1/7/1968. The USA
and the USSR signed the Non-Proliferation treaty regarding nuclear weapons (see
5/8/1963). This bound its signatories not to transfer nuclear weapons or
knowledge to non-nuclear countries. This
was a recognition that both the USA and the USSR had interests in not assisting
China to become nuclear.
26/6/1968, Earl Warren
announced his resignation as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
5/6/1968. A Jordanian-Arab called Sirhan Bishara Sirhan shot Robert
Kennedy, US Senator (born 1925), in the Hotel Ambassador, Los
Angeles. Kennedy, younger brother of President Kennedy, died 25 hours later.
Sirhan was arrested. He
was protesting against Kennedy�s outspoken support for Israel, on the
first anniversary of the Six Day War.
21/5/1968, The US Navy lost contact with the nuclear submarine Scorpion, with 99 men on board. The
wreck of the vessel was subsequently located on the ocean floor 640 km
southwest of the Azores.
16/2/1968, The first 911 emergency phone service was inaugurated in
the USA, at Haleyville, Alabama. It was free; other phone calls cost 10 cents.
23/1/1968, The USS
Pueblo, an intelligence ship, and its
89 man crew was seized by North Koreans in the Sea of Japan.
15/12/1967, The Silver Bridge, between
Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, hio, collapsed, killing 46
people.
25/8/1967, John Patler killed the head of the American
Nazi Party, George
Lincoln Rockwell. Patler had been a Party member until his
expulsion shortly before the murder.
12/7/1967, Five days of race riots, lasting until 17/7/1967,
broke out in Newark, USA, after an African-American was beaten by police for a
traffic offence.
26/3/1967. 10,000 hippies
held a rally in New York's Central Park.
3/1/1967, Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged
assassin of President
Kennedy, died of natural causes at a Dallas hospital. Mr Ruby was
awaiting the retrial of his murder case.
1966, The Department of Transportation was
created, and began operations in 1967.
1/8/1966, In Austin, USA, Charles Whitman
shot dead 12 people at Texas University before being shot dead himself by policemen.
7/4/1966, The US recovered an atom
bomb that had been accidentally dropped into the Atlantic ocean after a mid-air
collision.
20/2/1966, Chester Nimitz, American General and Pacific
Fleet Commander in World War II, died in San Francisco, four days
before his 81st birthday.
10/2/1966, Consumer activist and safety campaigner Ralph Nader
began testifying before US Congress about the reluctance of the US car industry
to invest in safety features.
9/11/1965. A
transmission relay in New York City failed, sparking a domino effect that led
to a blackout across New York State, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
England, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and parts of Pennsylvania and
Ontario.
3/10/1965,
US President Johnson ditched the immigration quota system under the 1965
Immigration Act. Educated skilled migrants could now enter the USA so long as
they did not threaten the livelihood of a US citizen.
10/9/1965, Yale
University published a map showing that the Vikings discovered America in the 11th century.
9/9/1965, The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) was established in
the USA
11/6/1965, President Johnson
declared that the promotion of learning
the English language should be a major policy in American foreign aid, and
directed the Peace Corps, the United States Agency for International
Development and other organizations to encourage the such study, in what was
viewed as elevating "the status of English as an international language.
USA social aid programmes 1964
1964, In the USA the Food Stamp Act expanded food aid for
the poor.
30/7/1964, US President
Johnson signed the Medicare
Act, providing State medical insurance for those aged 65 and over.
21/5/1964, US President Lyndon Johnson spoke of his
vision of a �Great Society�. He intended to redistribute wealth, improve civil
rights and healthcare, whilst maintaininhg a thriving economy.
16/3/1964, US President Johnson called for �total
victory� in a �national war on poverty�.
8/1/1964, In the US,
President Johnson proposed a reduction in defence spending. He wanted to reprioritise spending towards alleviating poverty.
28/8/1964, Race riots broke out in Philadelphia, USA.
18/7/1964, Race riots in Harlem, New York; start of
the �ghetto revolts�.
1/7/1964, Roscoe Pound, US legal scholar, died aged 93.
10/6/1964, The U.S. Senate voted closure of the Civil Rights
Bill after a 75-day filibuster.
5/4/1964, Douglas
MacArthur, American General and commander in the Pacific during
World War Two, died in Washington DC aged 84.
27/3/1964, Powerful
earthquake, magnitude 9.2, hit Alaska, 139 died.
27/9/1964, The Warren
Report was published, stating that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was responsible for the assassination
of President Kennedy.
Conspiracy theorists were not satisfied.
14/3/1964. Jack Ruby, aged 52,
was found guilty in Dallas of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President Kennedy
(see 22/11/1963). He was sentenced to death but died of a blood clot on the
lung in 1967.
24/11/1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President
Kennedy, was himself shot dead by Jack Ruby.
11/12/1963, In Los Angeles, Frank Sinatra Jr was set free
after his father paid kidnappers a US$ 240,000 ransom.
31/8/1963, The �hot
line�, linking the Kremlin and the White House, went into operation.
5/8/1963. President Kennedy
signed a Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty in Washington. This treaty forbade testing in the
atmosphere, outer space, or underwater, and was aimed at preventing other
nations than the USA or USSR developing nuclear weapons. However to allow
America and Russia to develop their nuclear weapons, underground testing was
allowed under this treaty (see 1/7/1968).
26/6/1963. President Kennedy made his famous �Ich bin
ein Berliner� speech. He meant to say �I am a Berliner�, to indicate US
support for the freedom of West Germany. However what he actually said
translated as �I am a doughnut�.
20/6/1963. The White
House and the Kremlin agreed to set up a �hot line�.
9/4/1963, Winston Churchill was given honorary US
citizenship.
6/4/1963, Anglo-US Polaris weapons agreement signed.
18/3/1963, In the USA, in Gideon v Wainwright, the Supreme
Court required the State to appoint defence counsel if the defendant could not
afford a private lawyer.
1962, The Baker v
Carr case , in the US Supreme Court; the Court ruled that state electoral
districts must contain approximately equal numbers of voters. This ended rural
domination of state legislatures.
21/12/1962, The US agreed to sell Polaris missiles to the UK.
18/12/1962, PM Harold MacMillan of the UK and President
Kennedy of the USA concluded the Nassau Agreement, at Nassau, Bahamas.� This allowed the US navy to provide Polaris
missiles for the Royal Navy, normally operating under NATO command.� This
Anglo-US collaboration was resented by General De
Gaulle of France, who saw it as proof that Britain
was not sufficiently European.� Within a
month De Gaulle had vetoed UK membership of
the EEC, see 14/1/1963.
5/12/1962, US diplomat Dean Acheson said Britain was 'played out'.
5/11/1962, In the US, elections left Democrats in control of
both Houses.
18/10/1961. A work by Henri Matisse attracted big crowds in the
Museum of Modern
Art in New York. Only after 116,000 people had seen it over 46 days did someone notice it was hung upside-down.
22/5/1961, The revolving restaurant,
Eye of the Needle (now known as SkyCity Restaurant) opened in Seattle at the
top of the Space Needle.
1/3/1961, US President Kennedy formed the Peace Corps, a group of volunteers to
work in less-developed countries.
27/1/1961, Zachary Space, US politician, was born.
26/9/1960, The first US Presidential debate to be televised,
between Nixon
and Kennedy.
Millions watched.
21/8/1960, David B Steinman, US bridge engineer, died
aged 74.
15/7/1960, In Los Angeles, Kennedy accepted the Democratic
Party nomination for President.
21/6/1960, Kate Brown, Governor of Oregon� from 2015, was born.
3.0, USA Cold War
strategy 1960-61
For Gary Powers espionage incident, 1960-62 see Russia
5/9/1961, The USA announced it would resume
underground nuclear
tests.
5/6/1961, The US Supreme Court ruled that the Communist
Party must register as a foreign-dominated organisation. On 17/6/1961 the US
Communist Party refused to comply with this ruling.
12/7/1960, President Khrushchev of
the USSR asserted that the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was no longer valid; this would legitimate Soviet interference
in the Caribbean. On 14/7/1960 the US confirmed that the Monroe Doctrine
was still in operation.
26/5/1960, At the United Nations in New York, U.S. Ambassador
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. displayed a hand-carved replica of the Great
Seal of the United States that had been presented by the Soviets as a gift to
the American ambassador in Moscow, and
the listening device that had been discovered inside "right under the beak
of the eagle".
24/5/1960, The USA launched the Midas-2 satellite.
Weighing over 2.5 tonnes, its purpose was to test the feasibility of a
satellite system to give early warning of any ballistic missile attack on the
USA.
19/1/1960, President Eisenhower of the USA signed a
Treaty of Mutual Co-operation and Security with Japan in Washington. This confirmed
Japan as an integral member of the anti-Communist alliance.
17/2/1960, Martin Luther King was arrested in the USA.
1959, Click here for image of Washington
DC urban sprawl 1949-59. See also related image London 1932.
16/10/1959, George Marshall, US soldier and politician who
formulated the Marshall Plan to aid
post-War Europe, died in Washington DC.
15/9/1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev became the head of
State of the USSR to be received at the US White House.
9/6/1959. The USA launched its first ballistic missile submarine, the George Washington.
24/5/1959, John Foster Dulles (born 1888), US Secretary of State until his
resignation due to ill-health in April 1959, died from cancer. He was chief
spokesperson for US President Woodrow Wilson
at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. He believed in a robust �brinkmanship�
approach to Soviet threats, reinforcing NATO and creating SEATO. He did not get
on with UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden,
disagreeing in particular with the UK�s policy over Suez. He opposed the Anglo-French
invasion of Egypt in late 1956, and sometimes
failed to anticipate Arab nationalist reactions to external intervention.
4/11/1958, In the USA, Democrats won the mid-term elections,
gaining 62 seats in the Senate (Republicans 34 seats). The Democrats gained 281
seats in the� House of Representatives
(Republicans 153 seats).
31/5/1958, The Kremlin and Washington agreed to hold
talks on a ban on atmospheric atom bomb tests.
2.5, Eisenhower Doctrine; Foreign policy
1955-58
3/5/1958, President Eisenhower proposed a demilitarised
Antarctic.
18/10/1957,
Queen
Elizabeth II met US President
Eisenhower; the first
visit by a British monarch to the White House.
7/3/1957, The United States Congress approved the Eisenhower Doctrine.
18/1/1957, The USSR and China stated their support for
Middle Eastern Arab States �against Western aggression�; see Eisenhower
Doctrine, 5/1/1957.
5/1/1957, In the USA, President Eisenhower announced
the Eisenhower Doctrine; that the US
will protect the independence of Middle Eastern States, fearing that the USSR
was behind Arab nationalist movements.
24/1/1955, Because of increasing tensions between
China and Formosa (Taiwan), US President Eisenhower asked Congress for
authority to protect Formosa; it was granted within four days by 409 votes to 3
in the House of Representatives.
24/3/1958. Elvis Presley
was sworn in as a US private. He was paid $78 as a regular. He had been given a
60-day deferment to make the film �King Creole�.
19/9/1957, The US carried out the first underground nuclear test in the� Nevada desert, the first of 29 such tests.
30/8/1957, US
senator Strom Thurmond
spoke for 24hrs 27m against civil rights.
31/5/1957, American playwright Arthur Miller was convicted of contempt
of Congress for refusing to name other writers as communists. Miller confessed
his own communist sympathies but said his conscience would not let him finger
others; the judge praised his motives but he could still face a year in jail.
7/5/1957 Eliot
Ness, the
FBI agent who headed the investigation of Al Capone in Chicago, died.
1956, President Eisenhower
signed the Federal Aid Highway Act, to create a US-wide network of
freeways.
25/9/1956, Transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and
the USA became operational.
3/8/1956, The name of Bedloe�s Island, site of the Statue of
Liberty, was changed to Liberty Island, on the approval of President Eisenhower.
29/6/1956, US President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid
Highway Act this day, providing for the construction of a 41,000 mile highway
system.
24/9/1955, US President Dwight D Eisenhower suffered a
heart attack.
14/8/1955, The US schooner Levin J. Marvel capsized and sank in Chesapeake Bay with the loss
of 12 of the 24 people on board.
3/3/1955, Katharine Drexel, US philanthropist, teacher
and Roman
Catholic saint, died aged 96.
2.0, McCarthyism
censured, 1954-57
2/5/1957. Senator Joe McCarthy, Republican, died of
liver disease. He was most remembered for his �witch-hunts� against suspected Communists.
See 2/12/1954.
2/12/1954, The US Senate voted to condemn McCarthy for abuse of proceedings, see 25/2/1954 and 2/5/1957.
30/6/1954, Senator McCarthy was censured by the US
Senate. He had gone too far by accusing the US Army of harbouring Communist
spies.
15/6/1954, Senator John McCarthy�s committee labelled Robert
Oppenheimer, inventor of the atom bomb, a security risk because he opposed
development of the Hydrogen Bomb.
9/6/1954, Joseph Welch,
special counsel for the United States Army., accused McCarthy of bad faith and
zealotry during investigations as to whether Communists had infiltrated the US
Army. McCarthy�s
position was rapidly becoming untenable.
22/4/1954, A
committee headed by Senator John
McCarthy, the �Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee�, began
hearings into an alleged Communist spy ring at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy�s methods
started alarming hs collaegues.
25/2/1954, President
Eisenhower censured McCarthy (see 9/2/1950) for his bullying tactics.
See 2/12/1954.
12/11/1954,
The immigration centre at Ellis Island, New York, closed. 15 million
migrants into the US had been processed through here since 1892.
25/10/1954,
In the US, meetings of the Cabinet were televised for the first time.
20/7/1954. The Geneva
Agreement ended hostilities between North and South Korea.
12/7/1954, US Vice President Richard Nixon announced the
construction of a network of Interstate Highways which would enable
drivers to cross the USA without encountering a single crossroads or traffic
light. They would also be useful as part of a defensive network, and to provide
rapid exits from cities in the event of war.
10/7/1954, US President Eisenhower signed Public Law 480,
the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, better known as
PL-480. This facilitated the export of grain to US-aligned governments that
were facing threats from Leftist agencies, either internal rebels or
intimidation from a Soviet-aligned State next door. PL-480 could be
used to keep recalcitrant allies, those possibly sliding towards Communism, in
line. For example in 1965 US President Johnson shifted the renewal of
PL-480 food aid to India from an annual to a�
monthly basis, threatening India with withdrawal of food aid as India�s
President
Shastri expressed disapproval of US bombing in Vietnam. However if Shastri
abandoned Nehru�s
ideas of land distribution to Indian peasants then India would receive US
agricultural technology, enhancing food yields.
10/6/1954, Charles Adams, US statesman (born 2/8/1866)
died.
4/5/1954, Doug Jones, US politician, was born.
7/4/1954, The USA announced that, in conjunction with Canada, it
would set up a chain of almost 100 radar stations along a 3,000 mile line at
the 55th parallel. On 27/9/1954 a second chain of radfar stations was announced
above the Arctic Circle to warn of enemy aircraft approaching from Russia
across the North Pole. This was the Distant Early Warning Line, of DEW; within
a few years it was obsolete because missiles would be delivered by rockets not
planes.
8/3/1954, The US and Japan signed a mutual defence pact.
5/2/1954, Carl Wickman, founder of
Greyhound Lines bus service, died aged 66.
10/10/1953. President Eisenhower of the USA signed a
treaty with South Korea promising military aid if North Korea attacked.
31/7/1953, Robert Taft, US Conservative politician, died
aged 63.
11/4/1953, The US Department of Health and Human Services was
established.
5/2/1953, Walt Disney�s film Peter Pan went on general release.
2/12/1952, US President Eisenhower visited Korea.
31/10/1952, The USA exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll
in the Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 5 to 7 megatons (million tons of
TNT) and left a hole a mile in diameter and 175 feet deep. A 5 megaton bomb
would devastate about 150 square miles by blast and subject about 800 square
miles to searing heat. See 9/9/2003.
25/10/1952, The USA blocked the entry of China to the United Nations for the
third year running. See 25/10/1971.
24/10/1952, In the US, Eisenhower described Korea as �the burial
place of twenty thousand Americans� and promised that if he was elected
President he would end the Korean War. Meanwhile the United Nations remained
deadlocked over the issue of the return of North Korean prisoners of War. The
USSR and China wanted them all returned to North Korea, but some PoWs insisted
they had been forcibly drafted into the North Korean forces and wanted to
settle in South Korea.
24/7/1952, Charles Copeland, US educationalist, died in
Massachusetts.
27/6/1952. The USA lifted its ban on immigration from Africa
and Asia.
25/6/1952, In the US the Immigration Bill was passed, despite
Resident Truman�s veto and a Democrat majority of ten in the Senate. This Bill
established immigration quotas by nationality, something Truman considered
racist.
2/6/1952, In Youngstown vs Sawyer, the US Supreme Court ruled
that President Truman had gone beyond his powers in ordering the State seizure of the steel industry during a strike.
8/4/1952, In the USA, President Truman ordered the State seizure of
the steel industry in response to a strike. The output of the steel mills was
considered vital for the US forces fighting in Korea. The strike ended in
2/5/1952, but the seizure continued
until after the Supreme Court decision of 2/6/1952..
29/3/1952, In the USA, President Truman announced he would not be
standing for the elections that year.
27/2/1952, The United Nations Building in New York saw
its first session.
1/11/1951, The US tested an atom bomb over the Nevada desert.
5/10/1951, The US House of representatives approved the US$ 56.9 billion Armed
Forces appropriation Bill.
8/9/1951, The San Francisco Treaty of Friendship between the
US and Japan
was signed.
19/7/1951, Severe flooding hit Kansas
and Missouri. 41 died and 200,000 were made homeless.
1.0, Fear of Communism;
McCarthyism, 1950-53
22/12/1953, US physicist Robert Oppenheimer had his security clearance
clearance revoked; he was suspected of Communist sympathies, because he was
opposed to developing a Hydrigen Bomb.
20/6/1953, The Jewish funeral service of Ethel and Julius Rosenburg was held at
Brooklyn (see 19/6/1953). The estimated 10,500 who attended were supportive of
the Rosenburgs,
who were seen as resisters of American imperialism.
19/6/1953. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg went to the
electric chair in Sing Sing prison, 30 miles north of New York, guilty of
spying for the USSR. They were the first
US civilians to be executed for espionage. They had been condemned on
30/3/1951. Sing Sing prison was built between 1825 and 1828, and took its name
from the local village. However the village soon changed its native-American
derived name to Ossining to avoid association with the prison.
17/4/1953, The actor Charlie Chaplin announced he would never
return to the USA, where he was wanted for back taxes and suspected of being a Communist
sympathiser.
19/9/1952, The comedian Charlie Chaplin was labelled
�subversive� by Right-wingers in the USA.
9/7/1951, Dashiell
Hammett, author of The Maltese
Falcon, was jailed for 6 months for contempt of court after refusing to
give testimony that would have helped trace Communists accused of conspiring
against the US.
30/3/1951. In the USA, the Rosenbergs (Julius and Ethel),
were sentenced to death, having been found guilty of passing atomic secrets to
the Russians
on 29/3/1951.. They were executed on 19/6/1953.
23/9/1950, The US passed the McCarran Act, which set up the Subversive
Activities Control Board. All Communist individuals and organisations had
to be registered, and no current of former member of s Communist of Fascist
organisation could enter the USA. The Board was abolished in 1973.
22/2/1950, In the USA, 205 members of the State
Department were accused of being Communists by Senator Joe McCarthy.
9/2/1950. In the USA, Joseph McCarthy
launched an anti-Communist crusade.
He claimed he knew the names of 250 Communists employed within the State
Department.� See 25/2/1954.
0.0, US
involvement in the Korean War, 1950-51
10/7/1951, Ceasefire talks between North and South
Korea began.
15/6/1951, The Korean front line between Northern and Southern
forces was stabilised at around the 38th parallel, where it had been
originally. See 10/7/1951.
11/4/1951. General
MacArthur was relieved of
his command by President Truman, after disagreeing over the conduct
of the Korean War.� MacArthur wanted to carry the war over into
Communist China, and bomb Chinese bases
in Manchuria.� MacArthur returned to a heroes welcome in Washington, but
did not realise his hopes of nomination for the US Presidential elections.
14/3/1951. US troops recaptured Seoul.
25/1/1951, UN forces halted the advance of the North Koreans
and counterattacked.
1/1/1951, Chinese and North Korean forces advanced through
UN lines and captured Seoul.
28/12/1950. Chinese forces in Korea crossed the 38th parallel.
28/11/1950. China entered the Korean War; 200,000
troops entered Korea across the Yalu River. UN troops were forced back
south again. On 28/12/1950 Chinese forces crossed the 38th parallel.
The West had ignored Chinese threats to intervene if US forces crossed north of
the 38th parallel.
24/11/1950, South Korean forces began an offensive in the Yalu
Valley; China
planned intervention to support the North,
19/10/1950.
US and South
Korean forces captured Pyongyang,
during the Korean War.
9/10/1950.
US forces, having reached the 38th parallel, the old intra-Korean
border, at the end of September, now crossed into North Korea. Warnings from the Indian Prime
Minister, Nehru, that this might provoke Chinese intervention were ignored
(see 28/11/1950).
1/10/1950,
South Korean
forces recrossed the 38th parallel.
26/9/1950. US forces recaptured Seoul.
15/9/1950. UN forces landed behind enemy lines at Inchon, North Korea. The South Korean
capital, Seoul, was retaken by the
end of September 1950.
1/9/1950. North Korean forces crossed the Naktong River.
26/7/1950, Britain decided to send troops to Korea.
8/7/1950, US General MacArthur took over UN forces in
Korea.
2/7/1950, American
troops landed in South Korea.
29/6/1950, South Korean forces retook Seoul.
28/6/1950, British Royal navy ships joined the US
forces in South
Korea.
27/6/1950. North Korean forces took Seoul. British forces
joined the war in Korea.
26/6/1950, US President Truman sent US forces to support South Korea.
25/6/1950. Start of the Korean War. North Korea invaded the
South, crossing the 38th parallel, which was the border.
26/5/1951, Lincoln Ellsworth, American Arctic
and Antarctic
explorer, and scientist, died.
7/11/1950, In US elections, the Republicans gained 30 seats
in the House of Representatives.
1/11/1950, �Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo
attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman. Torresola was killed during the
attack, but Collazo
was captured. Collazo
served 29 years in a federal prison, being released in 1979. Don Pedro
Albizu Campos also served many years in a federal prison in Atlanta,
for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government in Puerto Rico
12/9/1950, Louis A Johnson resigned as US Secretary of
Defence. He was succeeded by George Marshall.
-1.0, NATO
created, Hiss exposed, McCarthy�s anti-Communist drive begins, 1949-51
2/4/1951, NATO Allied Command Europe came into being.
1950, The Defense Production Act was passed, allowing public corporations to
borrow from the US Treasury if national security was at stake.
19/7/1950. President Truman asked the US Congress for a
big rise in military spending.
22/1/1950, In the USA, Alger Hiss,
former advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, was convicted of
perjury for denying contacts to Soviet agents. Hiss had liaised with Chambers,
editor of Time Magazine and a Communist agent. A previous trial of Hiss
ended in a hung jury; this day he received 5 years in prison. Senator
McCarthy used this case to allege that the US State Department was
riddled with Communist agents.
17/9/1949, The first meeting of NATO was held.
24/8/1949, The North
Atlantic Treaty, NATO, came into
force.
4/4/1949. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in
Washington. NATO was set up on 18/3/1949, by Britain and seven other
European countries. Denmark had agreed to join on 25/3/1949. Eleven countries
signed in total.
20/2/1949, Ivana Trump, US socialite was born.
9/2/1949, US actor Robert Mitchum was jailed for 2 months for smoking
marijuana.
7/1/1949, Marshall was succeeded by Acheson as US Secretary of
State.
16/11/1948, US President Truman refused to participate in
talks with the Soviets on the future of Berlin until the blockade was lifted.
15/10/1948, US President Gerald Ford married widow Elizabeth Bloomer Warren.
23/9/1948, 12,000 people attended a
rally of the American Communist Party at Madison Square Garden.
2/9/1948, Christa McAuliffe, US� teacher who died in the Challenger space
shuttle disaster in 1986, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
2/8/1948, Alger Hiss testified
in the US McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, using the phrase �Reds under the
bed�.
15/7/1948. John Pershing, commander of the US Army in
France in World War One, nicknamed �Black Jack�, died in Washington DC.
30/4/1948, The
Organisation of American States was set up. The agreement, covering all 21
of the republics in the Americas, was signed at Bogota, Colombia. The
fourteenth state ratified the treaty on 13/12/1951, thereby formally legally
validating the treaty.
31/3/1948. Al Gore, US Vice President under Bill Clinton,
noted for his strong pro-environmental
stance, was born.
15/3/1948. US coal miners went on strike for better pensions.
6/11/1947, The first post-War Rolls
Royce and Bentley cars arrived in the USA.
30/6/1947, US coal mining was
denationalised.
-2.0, Start of the Cold War, Iron Curtain. Marshall
Aid to western Europe, 1946-50
13/12/1950.
Marshall Aid to Britain stopped.
31/3/1948. US Congress passed the Marshall Aid Bill..
On 3/4/1948 President Truman signed the Economic Assistance Act, putting in
effect Marshall aid for 16 countries in war-torn Europe. The first aid
shipments to Europe left the USA on 5/4/1948.
1947, In the US, the Department of
Defense was established by the National Security Act of 1947. The
Department of war and the Department of tte Navy, which had both existed since
1789, were merged. Until 1949 the new agency was known as the National Military
Establishment,
5/10/1947. In the US, President
Truman urged Americans to give up meat on Tuesdays and poultry and
eggs on Thursday to aid Europe.
18/9/1947, The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was
founded, under the 1947 National Security Act. Created by President
Truman, it was a response to
the Cold war with the Soviet Union.
26/7/1947, In
the USA, Congress passed the National Security Act. This allowed the CIA to
engage in counter-intelligence in Europe against the USSR and Warsaw pact
countries.
5/6/1947. US Secretary
of State George
Marshall announced the Marshall
Plan to help Europe recover from near�
bankruptcy following the War.� See
16/4/1947.
8/5/1947. In
the USA, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigating
alleged Communist links in the Hollywood movie industry.
16/4/1947, The phrase �Cold War� was first used, in a
speech by Bernard Baruch in Columbia, South Carolina, when the US Congress was
discussing the �Truman Doctrine�.� This
was a doctrine of checking further Communist expansion into Europe by giving
economic and military aid to governments threatened by communist
subversion.� This was followed within 2
months by the Marshall Plan (5/6/1947).
12/3/1947, US President
Truman spoke of a Cold War
(see 5/3/1946) against Communism. He instituted the �Truman Doctrine�, whereby
the US would give military and economic access to any countries deemed to be
under Soviet threat, such as Greece or Turkey.
27/2/1947, In the USA, Donald Acheson
outlined, in the State Department, what was to become known as the Truman
Doctrine, aimed at containing Soviet expansion.
5/3/1946. Winston
Churchill referred to an �Iron
Curtain� descending across Europe, in a speech at Fulton, USA. The first
public acknowledgement that the Cold War had begun. See 12/3/1947.
16/4/1947, Ammonium nitrate stored
aboard the freighter Grandcamp exploded in Texas City Port, killing 752.
4/2/1947, US politician Dan Quayle was born
25/1/1947, Al Capone, American gangster and leader of
organised crime in Chicago during the Prohibition era, died aged 48 due to a
major brain haemorrhage, virtually penniless. In 1931 he was jailed for 11
years income tax evasion; he was released from Alcatraz in 1939, suffering from
syphilis and prematurely aged.
7/1/1947, George Marshall was appointed US Secretary of
State.
5/12/1946. New York was chosen as the permanent site of the
UN.
For history of
the United Nations, League of Nations, click here
5/11/1946, In the US, Republicans
gained control of Congress.
28/7/1946, Howard C. Petersen, US Assistant Secretary of
War, announced that, in addition to deaths in combat, 131,028 American and
Filipino citizens, mostly civilians, had died "as a result of war
crimes" from December 7, 1941 until the end of World War II.
23/7/1946, The last German prisoners of war in the United States
were released, as 1,385 POWs were placed on the ship General Yates, following
detention at Camp Shanks in New York. In all, there had been 375,000 German
prisoners kept in the US at the end of World War II.
13/7/1946, The US House of Representatives approved a loan to
Europe.
17/6/1946, Barry Manilow, American singer and songwriter,
was born in New York City.
12/6/1946, John H. Bankhead II, U.S. Senator for Alabama
since 1931, died aged 73
20/2/1946, US Congress passed the Employment Act, stating
that its aim was maximum employment.
10/2/1946, The first �GI brides� arrived in the USA to live
with their new partners. When US servicemen were stationed in the UK, British
males complained they were �overpaid, oversexed, and over here�. Many British
women became engaged or married to them. Now the GI brides assembled at camps
in Hampshire, to be shipped over to the USA aboard the Queen Mary.
29/1/1946, Harry L Hopkins, US government social
administrator, died aged 56.
19/1/1946, Dolly Parton, American Country and Western
singer, was born in Sevierville, Tennessee.
21/12/1945, US General Patton was killed in a road accident
whilst commanding the 5th US Army in West Germany.
6/12/1945, U.S. General George C. Marshall testified at the Pearl
Harbour inquiry that he did not anticipate the attack but that an
"alert" defence would have prevented all but "limited harm�.
5/12/1945. Five US Navy bombers on a training flight from
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, disappeared over the area later known as the Bermuda Triangle, with 27 crew. When
radio contact with the 5 planes was lost, a 6th plane was sent to
search for them; it too disappeared without trace.
2/12/1945, The Arab
world began a general boycott of Israel, to geographically isolate the country.
The boycott was to cover not just companies trading with Israel or with Israeli
companies but also companies doing business with these companies. In 1977 the
US, under President
Carter, declared it illegal for US companies to participate in this
boycott. In the 1990s Israel insisted upon the dismantling of the boycott,
which was estimated to have cost the country some US$ 40 billion, as part of
the Peace Process. In 2001, however, the Arab League�s Boycott Office resumed
activities as part of its support for the Palestinians during the Intifada.
-3.0, USA and World War Two 1939-45
22/11/1945, The famous Hollywood Canteen, which catered
to Allied servicemen and women during the war, shut its doors.
12/9/1945, An estimate of War casualties reckoned that Britain had lost 420,000 members of
the armed forces; the US had lost 292,000, and the USSR, 13 million. German
loss of military men was put at 3.9 million, Japan�s at 2.6 million. British
civilian casualties from air raids were set at 60,000, with 860,000 severely
injured.
20/8/1945, The US terminated the Lend Lease Act, as
hostilities had ceased� Passed by US
Congress in 1941, it offered help to the UK, under attack from the Nazis.� However US aid to Europe continued under the
Marshall Plan.
14/8/1945. Japan
surrendered unconditionally. This marked the end of World War II.
For World War Two in
the Pacific click here.
For World
War Two in Europe click here
VJ day was officially celebrated on the
following day, the 15th August. The Japanese surrender was
officially accepted by General Douglas MacArthur on the US aircraft carrier Missouri on 2/9/1945.
16/7/1945. The atom
bomb, produced at Los Alamos,
was tested at Alamogordo airbase in the desert of New Mexico. See 8/3/1950.
8/5/1945. VE Day. The
Second World War officially ended in Europe, at one minute past midnight. Field
Marshall Keitel signed the final capitulation.
5/5/1945. Elsie Mitchell and the five children she
was looking after were killed in Oregon by a Japanese balloon bomb.� They
ware the only people killed in enemy action on the US mainland during World War
Two.
25/4/1945, US and Soviet forces met on the Elbe near
Torgau.
24/4/1945, Himmler offered to surrender the German
Reich to the governments of Great Britain and the USA.
19/4/1945, US forces took Leipzig; the city was later handed to the Soviet sector, East
Germany.
18/4/1945, US troops under General Patton entered
Czechoslovakia.
17/4/1945. US troops captured the Buchenwald
concentration camp.
23/3/1945. The US 2nd
Army crossed the Rhine. By 20/4/1945 British troops had advanced 200 miles into
Germany.
4/2/1945. The Yalta
Conference between the Allied leaders Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
opened in the Crimea. This conference concluded on 11/2/1945. Churchill,
Roosevelt, and Stalin all had very different aims. Roosevelt wanted to
disengage US troops from Europe to defeat Japan. Stalin wanted to extend Soviet influence as far west into Europe as
possible. Stalin got to occupy eastern Poland, as agreed in Tehran on
28/11/1943. Churchill wanted to build a democracy from the ruins of Germany.
The ailing Roosevelt trusted Stalin�s assurance that he would work to build a
�peaceful and democratic world�. The West insisted that Greece be given a
western-style democracy, but otherwise all of eastern Europe fell under the
Soviet sphere. Stalin also gained Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands in return for
a war effort against Japan that was never made. Yalta set the world order for
the next 45 years.
3/1/1945, The Dies
Committee (see 26/5/1938), formed to monitor activities by Nazis and
Communists within the USA, was given permanent status as the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC)
22/12/1944, An American unit was surrounded at Bastogne
by the German advance in the Battle of
the Bulge.� The unit held out until
relieved on 26/12/1944. Inside Bastogne, General Anthony C McAuliffe received a message
from the besieging Germans inviting him to surrender; his reply, scrawled on
the surrender invite, was one word�
-�NUTS�.
7/10/1944, The Dumbarton Oaks Conference ended.
21/8/1944, Meetings began at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington
DC, on starting the Charter of the United
Nations.� These meetings ended on
7/10/1944.
19/7/1944, Leghorn retaken by American forces.
8/5/1944, Eisenhower settled on 5, 6, or 7 June as date
for the D-Day landings
16/1/1944, General Eisenhower was appointed Supreme
Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.
1943, The Pentagon was completed
to house the offices of the US Department of War (see 1947).
17/12/1943, US President Roosevelt repealed the Chinese
Exclusion Acts of 1882 and 1902, and signed the Chinese Act. This made Chinese
residents of the US eligible for naturalisation, and allowed an annual
immigration of 105 Chinese.
28//11/1943. The
main Allied leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, all met in Tehran.
Co-ordinating the Normandy landings with a Russian attack on the eastern front
was discussed, also a Russian attack on Japan, and a post-war United Nations
Organisation. All agreed that the USSR could have eastern Poland as far west as
the Curzon line, and Poland would be compensated with lands in eastern Germany.
This was confirmed at the Yalta Conference of 4 � 11 February 1945.
1/6/1943, The close of the Hot Springs Conference
(opened 18/5/1943); the Allies discussed World War Two.
14/1/1943. Churchill, de Gaulle,
and Roosevelt met at Casablanca. They
demanded the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.� Plans were made for the invasion of Sicily
increased US bombing of Germany, and the transfer of British forces to the far
east once Germany was defeated.
28/10/1942, Due to shortages of rubber for tyres in the
USA, Utah imposed a �patriotic speed limit� of 35 mph (56 kph) across the
State. Road accidents were cut by 35%, with fatalities falling by half.
22/7/1942, In the USA, petrol rationing for civilians
began as fuel was needed for the War.
17/6/1942, President Roosevelt met with Winston
Churchill in Washington to discuss war production and military
strategy.
8/6/1942. Churchill arrived in Washington for talks with
Roosevelt.
21/3/1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.
This established the War Relocation
Authority, to move Japanese in the US away from the west coast. Some
110,000 Japanese in the US were interned in WRA camps, although most of the
150,000 Japanese in Hawaii were not interned.
3/3/1942, The USA declared
the West Coast a military area and evacuated some 100,000 civilians.
23/2/1942, Lend Lease was made reciprocal between the
USA and Britain.
27/1/1942, Jacqueline Cochrane, US aviatrix, flew a US
bomber to the UK, for raids against Germany.
26/1/1942, American troops landed in Northern Ireland.
25/1/1942, Siam (Thailand) declared war on Britain and
the USA.� The USA did not declare war on
Siam.� Many Thai sympathised with the
Allied side.
1/1/1942, As the USA entered WW2, it announced that
from 22/2/1942 production of civilian cars must cease. The current stock of
520,000 US civilian cars could only be sold to those deemed �essential drivers�
Brightwork materials on cars produced in January and February, such as chrome
trims, was to be limited as it was needed for war production.
27/12/1941, The US Government, as part of wartime
rationing, limited the number of tyres any car driver could own to 5. This
limit remained in place until 31/12/1945.
11/12/1941. Hitler
declared war on the USA, as did Italy, even though he had not yet
conquered Russia or invaded Britain. The USA declared war on Germany and Italy.
See
also China/Japan/Korea
for World War Two in Pacific
See
also France-Germany (from 1/1/1870) for
main events of World War Two in Europe
8/12/1941. Britain
and the USA declared war on Japan. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti, and the
Dominican Republic also declared war on Japan, and China declared war on all
the Axis powers. Britain declared war on Finland, Rumania, and Hungary.� Siam (Thailand) agreed to the passage of
Japanese forces through its territory to attack British Malaya.
7/12/1941. Japanese attack on the USA fleet
in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Pearl Harbour was taken entirely by surprise and
within 2 hours 360 Japanese warplanes had destroyed 5 battleships, 14 smaller
craft, and 200 aircraft. 2,400 people, many of them civilians, were killed.
However the Japanese failed to find and destroy America�s all-important
aircraft carriers, both of which were away on manoeuvres. The Japanese force
then turned west to strike the British in the East Indies, Australia, and
Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The US Congress met to declare war in emergency session on
8/12/1941,
�much
to the relief of Britain.
6/12/1941. Roosevelt
appealed to Hirohito to avoid a war with the
USA.
1/12/1941. The
Japanese Emperor ratified the decision to go to war with the USA.
3/11/1941. President
Roosevelt was warned by the US Ambasador to Tokyo of a possible Japanese
attack on the USA.
11/10/1941, The
Japanese Government approved plans for an attack on Pearl Harbour.
26/9/1941, The US
proclaimed an embargo on steel and scrap iron exports to Japan, with effect
from 16/10/1941.
21/9/1941, The Jeep was born. The US Army asked
135 companies to provide a prototype of a 4-wheel drive reconnaissance
car.� Bantam delivered a model this day,
which was satisfactory apart from needing better engine torque. The model was
then sent to Willys-Overland for production. However as the US entered WW2, it
became apparent that Willys could not produce the number of vehicles needed, so
Ford was granted a licence to also produce these vehicles, on 10/1/1942.
9/9/1941, Churchill met Roosevelt in Placentia Bay,
Newfoundland.
26/7/1941, Britain and the USA froze Japanese assets.
10/4/1941.
The USA sent troops to Greenland to protect arms supply lines from the USA to
Britain.
11/3/1941.
In the USA, the Lend Lease Bill became law. In May 1940 Churchill had
asked President Roosevelt for both arms and financial assistance in the war,
which the USA was not to enter as a combatant until Pearl Harbour on
7/12/1941. Roosevelt was sympathetic to the British cause but had three
obstacles to face. 1) Congress was isolationist, and Roosevelt did not wish to
do anything to jeopardise his re-election prospects before November 1940. 2)
The neutrality Act had to be amended to allow Britain and France to purchase
arms for cash; this was done in November 1939. 3) The Johnson Act, 1934,
forbade loans to any country defaulting on its loans, and Britain had still not
paid back money it borrowed during World War One. In May 1940 Roosevelt
authorised Congress to release from ordnance stores 500,000 WW1 rifles and 900
75mm field guns. In September 1940 Roosevelt provided Britain with 50 old
destroyers in return for 99 year leases on British islands in the Caribbean and
Newfoundland. In December 1940 Churchill requested American protection of
Atlantic convoys and financial assistance to purchase further American arms.
Roosevelt was advised that Britain had less than US$2 billion to meet arms
purchases of US$ 5billion. Roosevelt coined the term �lend lease�, on the
analogy of a neighbour who lends his hose if the house is on fire.
6/1/1941. Roosevelt
sent the Lend Lease Bill to Congress. Congress agreed the Bill on
11/3/1941.
17/12/1940, US President Franklin Roosevelt proposed
�Lend Lease� for Britain.
7/11/1940. Britain, the USA, and Australia agreed on
the defence of the Pacific.
16/10/1940, The first lottery to select US citizens for
the military draft began; 158 were drawn this day.
27/9/1940. Imperial Japan signed a 10-year military
and economic alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. This was greatly
disturbing to both the USSR and the USA; Japan and Russia had been enemies
since the 1905 war, and Hitler�s alliance with Russia, signed in 1939,� was looking more uncertain.. The USA now realised that entering the war
on the side of the Allies would now entail a war in the Pacific.
26/2/1940, The United States Air Defense Command was
created, to provide co-ordinated air defence for the USA.
8/12/1939, As the UK began a naval blockade of
Germany, the US protested at restrictions on international free trade.
4/11/1939. President Roosevelt announced he would amend
the Neutrality Act to allow Britain and France to buy arms from the USA. Roosevelt hoped this would avoid direct US
involvement in the war.
18/10/1939, Lee Harvey Oswald, American assassin, was born
in New Orleans.
13/10/1939, Hitler made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade
US President
Roosevelt to mediate a peace between Germany, France and Britain.
5/9/1939. President Roosevelt declared the USA neutral in
World War Two.
2/8/1939, Albert Einstein wrote to US President Franklin D Roosevelt
urging him to commit to research into the possibility of atomic bombs.
3/11/1943. US miners ended a 6 month strike.
9/6/1943, US Congress approved the Pay as You Go scheme for
deducting income tax from salaries.
14/5/1943, Jules Gabriel Fisher, Louisiana State Senator,
died (born 15/4/1874).
1/4/1943. The rationing of meats, fats, and cheese began in
the USA.
13/3/1943, J P Morgan Jnr, US financier, died aged 75.
15/1/1943. The
Pentagon, built to house the US
Defence Department, opened in Arlington, Virginia, on the Potomac River.
28/11/1942, 492 died in a fire at Cocoanut Grove nightclub,
Boston, USA.
10/11/1942, William Crozet, US artillery expert, died.
24/2/1942, Joe Lieberman,
US politician, was born.
25/6/1941, US President Roosevelt appointed an Employment
Practices Committee to ensure reasonable employment conditions.
22/3/1941, The Grand
Coulee Dam, on the Columbia River, Washington State, began operating.
6/3/1941. Gutzon Borglum,
American sculptor noted for his work on the Mount Rushmore heads of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln,
and Theodore Roosevelt, died.
30/1/1941, Dick
Cheney, US Vice-President, was born.
4/1/1941. The German-born actress Marlene Dietrich became a US
citizen.
20/7/1940. The first singles charts were published in the US
journal Billboard.
15/5/1940. Nylon
stockings went on sale for the first time, in America. In New York. Alone,
72,000 pairs were sold in the first eight hours.
7/2/1940, Disney�s film Pinocchio was given a gala premiere in New York.
23/11/1939, In the USA, Thanksgiving Day was now celebrated
this Thursday, the 4th Thursday in the month, rather than the 30th,� the last Thursday as previous years. The
retail lobby had persuaded President Roosevelt to make the change so as
to lengthen the Christmas Shopping season by a week.
28/7/1939, William James Mayo,
US surgeon and co-founder of the Mayo
Clinic, died aged 78.
30/4/1939, The World Fair in
New York opened. It was opened by President Franklin D Roosevelt, who became the
first US President to appear on TV, as NBC began their TV news service this
day.
14/4/1939, John Steinbeck�s The Grapes of Wrath was published.
1/4/1939, The USA recognised Franco�s government in Spain.
31/10/1938. A radio broadcast of H G Well�s War of the Worlds caused widespread
panic because of its vivid realism. The adaptation of the play carried a
warning that it was not for real but this warning was not broadcast until 40
minutes after the play had begun. Terrified Americans packed the roads, hid in
cellars, loaded guns, and wrapped their heads in wet towels to protect
themselves against Martian poison gas. The event proved both the power of mass
media and the American capacity for hysteria.
8/6/1938, US President Franklin D Roosevelt requested a report on the
utility of a national tolled road network.
26/5/1938, The Dies
Committee was established by the US House of Representatives. Named after
its Chairman, Martin Dies, its remit
was to investigate �Un-American� activities by Nazis and Communists within the
USA. See 3/1/1945.
15/5/1937, Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, was
born.
5/4/1937, Colin Powell, US Secretary of
State, was born.
22/1/1937, In the USA, the Ohio River
flooded, killing 16 and making 150,000 homeless.
6/1/1937, In the USA, President Roosevelt forbade shipments of arms
to either side in Spain.
1936, In the US, the
Rural Electrification Administration
(REA) was established. Riral telephone lines were also developed by the REA
from 1949.
30/12/1936, Striking workers in the USA closed 7 General
Motors plants.
12/11/1936, The San Francisco�Oakland Bay Bridge opened.
29/6/1936, US Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, providing
subsidies to US shipping lines who were facing higher costs than foreign
shipping operators.
29/2/1936. President Roosevelt signed a second neutrality
bill, banning loans to countries at war.
4/1/1936, The first
pop music chart was compiled, based on record sales published in New York
in The Billboard.
10/12/1935, The Huey Long Bridge was completed in Metairie,
Louisiana.
10/9/1935, Huey Pierce
Long, Louisiana politician, was shot dead in Baton Rouge.� He had opposed �lying newspapers� and got the
Louisiana legislature to impose a tax on any newspaper with a circulation of
over 20,000.
31/8/1935, In the USA, President Roosevelt banned arms sales to
warring countries.
30/8/1935, The USA passed the Revenue
Act, redistributing some wealth and taxing gifts and inheritances. The US
Inland revenue service reported that 0.1% of US corporations owned 52% of all
corporate assets and less than 5% owned 87% of all corporate assets.
23/8/1935, The USA established Fort
Knox as its gold bullion repository.
14/8/1935. President Roosevelt signed the Social Security
Bill, introducing welfare for the old, sick, and unemployed.
10/6/1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in the United States
by Bill
Wilson and Dr Robert Smith.
21/5/1935, Death of Jane Addams (born 6/9/1860). She founded Hull
House, a mission to help poor immigrants in the US. She was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1931 for her efforts to promote pacifism after World War One.
6/3/1935, Oliver Wendell Jr, US Supreme Court Justice,
died in Washington DC.
16/2/1935, Sonny Bono, US Congressman, was born.
8/1/1935. Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi,
the surviving brother of twins.
8/9/1934, The luxury liner Morro Castle caught fire off New Jersey, killing 134.
22/8/1934, Norman Schwarzkopf, US General,
was born.
20/8/1934. The USA joined the International Labour Organisation.
7/8/1934, A US Appeal Court upheld a judge�s ruling to allow
James Joyce�s work, Ulysses, to be
sold in the USA.
22/7/1934, Bank robber John Dillinger was killed in an FBI ambush in
Chicago.
9/6/1934. Donald Duck
was created, in Walt Disney�s cartoon The
Little Wise Hen. Walt Disney was born in Chicago on 5/12/1901.
23/5/1934. Bank robbers Bonnie Parker (23) and Clyde Barrow (25) were shot dead
in an ambush by Texas rangers near Gibland, Alabama. Clyde met Bonnie in the
caf� where she worked. She chose a life of excitement, drama, and danger, when
she married the convict Clyde. She drove his getaway car as he robbed banks. A
total of 12 people had died in their raids across the south western USA over
the past 4 years. In 1930 Clyde was arrested but he escaped with Bonnie�s help
and returned to bank robbery. After the death of the pair, people paid to see
their bodies in the State morgue.
17/5/1934, Cass Gilbert, the US architect who designed
many of New York�s skyscrapers, including the Woolworth Building, died.
26/4/1934, US railway companies averted a strike by reaching
a settlement to gradually roll back the 10% pay cut imposed on the workers two
years earlier.
18/4/1934. The first
launderette opened in Fort Worth, Texas, by J F Cantrell. It was called a
washeteria.
25/3/1934, The threatened US car workers' strike was averted
when the Roosevelt
administration created a National Automotive Labor Board to help resolve
disputes
24/3/1934. The USA promised it would grant independence to the
Philippines.
5/2/1934, Rioting broke out in the streets of New York over
the cab driver strike as strikers fought with police and burned independent
cabs.
16/11/1933, The USA
established diplomatic relations with the USSR for the first time since the Russian
Revolution.
7/11/1933, LaGuardia was
elected Mayor of New York; he served until 1045.
31/10/1933, The
carvings of the four heads of Presidents at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, was completed.
30/9/1933, US President Franklin D Roosevelt announced the US$ 700
million New Deal for the poor.
25/6/1933, James Meredith, US civil rights activist, was
born.
6/6/1933. The first drive � in cinema opened in
Camden, New Jersey, with room for 400 cars.
27/5/1933, The �Century of World Progress� Fair opened in
Chicago.
24/4/1933, Felix Adler, US educationalist (born 13/8/1851)
died.
20/3/1933, Guisepope Zangara, who attempted to murder US
President-elect Roosevelt
in February, was executed.
US tackles
Depression and unemployment crisis 1930-33
16/6/1933, US Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act, encouraging collective bargaining
in the workforce, also the Glass Steagal
Act stopping the banks from speculative shares dealings.
13/6/1933, US Congress established the Home Owner�s
Loans Corporation, granting loans to enable homeowners to avoid foreclosure.
22/5/1933. President Roosevelt appointed Harry Hopkins
as the administrator of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. This was
to give aid and work to the destitute in the USA as the 1930s Depression deepened. 29/10/1929 was the date of the Wall
Street Crash.
12/3/1933, In the US, President Roosevelt made the
first of his �fireside chats� by radio to the people. He assured people that
the banks were safe for depositing savings.
9/3/1933, In the
US, the holding of gold bullion by private citizens was made illegal by the Emergency Banking Relief Act. This was
a measure to ensure that all gold in the US was available to back the US Dollar
during the Depression.
4/3/1933. President Franklin D Roosevelt was inaugurated in the USA. In the midst of
the Depression, with banks closing, he said �We have nothing to fear but fear
itself�.
16/7/1932, Rioting broke out in front of the White
House by members of the Bonus Army who still refused to leave the capital.
Contrary to tradition, President Hoover did not attend the final day
of the 72nd Congress before adjourning until December due to safety concerns.
7/3/1932,
5,000 unemployed workers laid off by the Ford Motor Company marched through
Detroit to demand relief payments. As the unarmed crowd got near Gate 4 of the
River Rouge Ford Plant at Dearborn, armed police and security giards stormed
out of the plant and fired on the workers, killing five.
8/12/1931, In
the USA, President
Hoover urged� Congress to
adopt a programme of public works, to ease unemployment.
7/12/1931, In
the USA, Hunger marchers protested outside the White House, as US unemployment
reached 8 million.
22/6/1931. In The USA, President Hoover suggested that German war
reparations be suspended for a year to stimulate world trade.
20/12/1930, US Congress passed further Public Works
Bills worth some US$ 116 million to tackle rising unemployment.
2/12/1930, US President Hoover addressed US Congress, asking
for US$ 150 million to alleviate rising unemployment.
4/4/1930, US Congress approved a State road building
programme to create more jobs.
31/3/1930, US Congress approved a Public Buildings Act
to create more jobs.
23/1/1933, The US, under the 20th Amendment,
moved the Inauguration Day of its Presidents from 4 March to 23 January. The
aim was to reduce the �lame duck� period of an outgoing President.
7/9/1932, J Paul Getty II, US philanthropist, was born.
9/7/1932. King Camp Gillette, American inventor of the
safety razor and blade, died.
12/5/1932, The body of the kidnapped infant son of Charles
and Anne
Lindbergh was found, less than 8km from his home 8in New Jersey.
1/3/1932, The 20-month old son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped
from the nursery of their home in Hopwell, New Jersey. He was found dead on
12/5/1932. Bruno
Hauptmann was convicted of the crime and electrocuted.
8/3/1932. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the New Hampshire
presidential primary
22/2/1932. Edward Kennedy, American senator and younger
brother of President
Kennedy, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts.
13/11/1931, The Whitney Museum of
American Art opened in New York City.
24/10/1931. Al Capone, 32, Chicago gang boss of the
Prohibition era, was jailed for 11 years for tax evasion. He was also fined
US$80,000. He was released in 1939 and died on 25/1/1947 of a brain
haemorrhage.
1/10/1931, The
Waldorf Astoria, on Park Avenue, New York, opened.� It was the world�s largest commercial hotel
building.
17/9/1931. 33 1/3 rpm
LP records were released in the USA.�
They were demonstrated at the Savoy Plaza Hotel, New York.
31/7/1931, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, home of the Cleveland
Indians, opened.� It was the largest
baseball stadium in the world.
19/3/1931, Indigestion aid Alka-Seltzer went on sale in the USA.
18/3/1931, The US company Schick Inc started to manufacture electric razors.
3/3/1931. The song, �The Star Spangled Banner�, became
the American National Anthem.
30/12/1930, The Colonial National Monument in Virginia was
proclaimed by President
Hoover.
27/6/1930, Ross Perot, US politician, was born.
6/12/1929, US marines were sent to Haiti to quell a revolt
there.
3/12/1929, President Hoover delivered his first State of
the Union speech to Congress.
23/9/1929, The $1.5 million, 21,000-seat St. Louis Arena
opened.
28/7/1929, Jacqueline Onassis, widow of President
Kennedy, was born in Southampton, New York State, as Jacqueline Lee
Bouvier.
14/2/1929. The St
Valentines Day Massacre took place in Chicago. Seven members of Bugsy Moran�s
gang were machine-gunned to death by a rival gang.
13/1/1929, Wyatt Earp, American lawman and hero of the OK
Corral, died peacefully aged 81.
1928, Roosevelt,
future US President, was elected Governor of New York.
7/12/1928, Noam Chomsky, US social scientist, was born.
13/3/1928, In Los Angeles, 450 died when a dam burst.
21/1/1928, George Washington Goethals, American, chief engineer of the Panama Canal, died.
3/1/1928, US troops went to Nicaragua to fight the Sandinistas.
7/8/1927, The Peace
Bridge opened between Canada and the USA.
21/1/1927, Telly Savalas, American film actor who played
�Kojak�, was born in Garden City, New York.
19/6/1925, Bank robber Everett Bridgewater and two accomplices were
arrested in Indianapolis, Indiana.
13/1/1929, Wyatt Earp, American lawman and hero of the OK
Corral, died peacefully aged 81.
28/11/1925, The newly-rebuilt Madison Square Garden indoor
arena opened in New York.
10/10/1925, James Buchanan Duke, US industrialist, (born
in Durham, North Carolina, 23/12/1856) died in New York.
26/7/1925, William Jennings Bryan, US Democratic Party
orator and prosecutor in the Scopes �Monkey Trial�, born 19/3/1860 in Salem,
Illinois, died in Dayton, Tennessee.
17/1/1925, US President Coolidge, in an address to the
Society of American newspaper Editors, stated �The business of America is
business� as he set out his policy of reducing taxes, especially on the middle
class. He opposed any write down of British and French War Debt to the USA.
27/11/1924, The first Macy�s Thanksgiving Parade was held in
New York City.
4/11/1924, Calvin Coolidge was re-elected President pof
the USA
26/5/1924. The US cut immigration quotas from an annual 3% of
the number of that nationality already in the US (enacted 1921) to 2%, and
excluded Japanese citizens entirely. Japan protested.
13/4/1924, Calvin Coolidge was nominated as US
Presidential candidate by the Republican Party
10/4/1924. The first crossword
puzzle book was published in New
York.
19/4/1923, The Yankee Stadium, New York, opened.
3/3/1923. The US magazine Time
was first published. Republican-leaning,
the magazine was to condense the news for time-pressed
Americans, and could be distributed by rail in a country with no true
national newspaper.
13/1/1923, The US Senate agreed to
take in 25,000 Armenian orphans.
10/1/1923, The last US
troops left Germany.
22/12/1922, New York�s last
horse-drawn fire engine was taken out of service.
7/11/1922. In US Congressional elections, the Republican
majority was reduced.
15/8/1922, End of a coal strike in the USA (began 1/4/1922).
20/3/1922. President Harding recalled US troops from the
Rhineland.
4/3/1922, In the USA the �Teapot Dome� scandal emerged. Secretary of the Interior Albert B Fall
resigned as a Senate Committee investigated alleged unlawful leasing of
Government oil reserves and other matters. In 1929 Fall was sentenced to 1 year in
prison, also fined.
6/2/1922, The Limitation of Armaments Conference at
Washington ended.
22/12/1921, US Congress set aside US$ 20 million for food aid
to starving children in the USSR.
12/11/1921, The Limitation of Armaments Conference began in
Washington.
10/11/1921, The US Marine Corps was founded.
1/9/1921, In the USA, the Klu Klux Klan now had over 4 million
members.
25/8/1921. Peace treaty (Treaty
of Berlin) signed between Germany and the USA.
11/8/1921, Alex Hailey, US author of Roots, was born.
19/5/1921. The USA introduced quotas for immigration, setting these at 3% of the each nationality
in the US as it was in 1910. This favoured the British, Irish, Scandinavians,
and Germans, and worked against the southern Europeans and Asians. The measure
was backed by organised labour, worried about unemployment, by reformers
worried about the poverty and slums in the US, and by those who felt that the
Asian races were inferior to Europeans.
12/4/1921, US President Harding
rejected joining the League of Nations.
10/12/1920, Woodrow Wilson
and Leon Bourgeois
were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
7/12/1920, US
President Woodrow Wilson
made his State of the Union speech.
9/11/1920, Philip Hodge, US engineer, was born.
16/10/1920, US Marines killed the Haitian rebel leader.
16/9/1920, A bomb exploded at the JP Morgan bank, killing 30
and injuring 100.
26/8/1920. Under the 19th Amendment,
women received the vote in the USA.
5/7/1920, In the US, the Democratic Convention nominated James M Cox
for Presidency and F D Roosevelt for Vice-Presidency.
12/3/1920, Edward P. McCabe, African-American land agent
who sought to make the Oklahoma Territory into a majority black state, died
aged 69.
16/1/1920.
Prohibition began in the USA (18th Amendment), and the sale, manufacture, or
involvement with alcohol was banned.
See also Morals and Fashion for more details on
Prohibition.
5/1/1920. Radio
Corporation of America was formed for world-wide broadcasting.
27/11/1919. A large meteor landed in Lake Michigan.
11/11/1919, Death of Andrew Carnegie, US steel magnate and
philanthropist. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on 25/11/1835, his family moved
to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when Andrew was 13. \he gave considerable sums to
education and set-up the Carnegie Endowment for International Pece.
13/10/1919. Dock strike in New York.
2/10/1919, US President
Wilson suffered a massive stroke, leaving his left side paralysed.
22/9/1919. Major steel strike in the USA.
9/9/1919, Boston, USA, police went on strike over low pay.
Just 427 of the former 1,544 man force remained on duty, and crime soared. The
militia were called in and the strikers sacked.
11/8/1919, Andrew Carnegie died aged 83 at his Berkshire
Hills, Massachusetts, mansion. Out of his fortune, he had given away US$ 350
million in philanthropic donations.
25/2/1919, Oregon became the first US State to levy a tax on
petrol. The tax revenue was used for road construction and maintenance.
15/1/1919, A tank containing 8.7 million litres of warm molasses in Boston, USA, burst. A
5-metre high wave of molasses swept through the docks area at 60 mph, wrecking
buildings. 21 people were killed and 150 injured. Many died as the molasses
cooled and became more viscous, suffocating its victims.
4/6/1918, Charles Warren Fairbanks, US statesman, died
in Indianapolis, Indiana (born 11/5/1852 in Ohio).
12/5/1918, Julius Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
19/3/1918, US Congress passed the Standard Time Act making
the 4 US time zones official.
Anti-Communism
starts in USA
2/1/1920. Major US crackdown on suspected Communists began. The �Palmer
Raids� in over 30 cities across the USA resulted in the arrest of almost
3,000 anarchists, communists and other radicals. These raids were the idea of
Attorney-General A Mitchell Palmer. The raids were controversial;
some protested at the disregard for civil liberties, but some on the Right
wanted those detained to be executed. Palmer himself, a Democrat, lost the
Presidential nomination� in late 1920 but
maintained he had foiled a Bolshevik plot to overthrow the US Government.
31/8/1919. The US
Communist Party was founded.
11/2/1919, The Overman
Committee was set up in the US, and played a crucial role in constructing
image of the Red Radical Soviet� threat to the US. It was a precursor to the
HUAC (House Committee of Un-American Activities).
15/8/1918. The US severed diplomatic relations with the
Bolshevik government of Russia.
USA enters
the Great War, after attacks on its shipping
19/3/1920. The US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty
of Versailles, and the US refused to join the League of Nations.
15/3/1919, Delegates from the American Expeditionary
Force founded the American Legion Organisation of Veterans, to support
veteran�s welfare.
3/2/1919, US President Woodrow Wilson attended the
first meeting of the League of Nations in Paris.
14/12/1918, President Woodrow Wilson arrived in Paris for
peace talks.
Post-War
initiatives
11/11/1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and
Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29/9/1918.� Church bells
rang out across Britain in celebration. The Allies had not expected such a
sudden collapse of Germany; in September 1918 they were planning campaigns for
1919. However General Ludendorff was shaken by the sudden Allied advance (see
8/8/1918) and begged Kaiser Wilhelm to seek an armistice immediately. The
Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch�s railway carriage, near Compiegne.� Warsaw became the capital of a restored
Polish State. The armistice required Germany to relinquish 5,000 heavy guns,
30,000 machine guns, 2,000 aircraft, all U-boats, 5,000 locomotives,� 150,000 wagons and 5,000 lorries. The surface
fleet was to be interned (see 21/11/1918), the Allies were to occupy the
Rhineland, and the blockade of German ports would continue. World War One cost
9 million lives, with a further 27 million injured. Britain alone had lost
750,000 men, and a further 200,000 from the Empire, with another 1.5 million
seriously injured. The War had cost the Allies an estimated US$ 126 billion,
and the Central Powers a further US$ 60 billion. Britons now celebrated, and
wages rose, although higher food prices eroded some of those gains. Women, at
least those over 30, finally had the vote, and smoking, gambling and movies
boomed, with Charlie Chaplin as movie star.
The US was the greatest
beneficiary of the War. US losses amounted to 53,000 men, a small number
compared to 8,500,000 casualties of the European combatants. US industry had
become more efficient, and key sectors such as chemicals had learned to do
without Europe; the US aviation industry had been transformed. Economically,
The US had needed European capital before 1914; by 1918 Europe owed the US some
US$ 10,000 million.
29/9/1918. Allied
troops captured part of the Hindenburg Line. Ludendorff called for an armistice
to avert a� catastrophe for Germany.
Negotiations opened with President Woodrow Wilson of the USA on
4/10/1918 but fighting continued till 11/11/1918.
9/8/1918, The US Government ordered a halt to all
civilian car manufacturing, with effect from 1/1/1919, so resources could be
diverted to building military vehicles.
8/4/1918, Betty Ford, US President Ford�s wife, was born.
12/2/1918, In New York, all Broadway theatres closed
so as to save coal for the US War effort.
21/1/1918, The New York Philharmonic Orchestra banned
all performances of works composed by living Germans.
7/12/1917. The USA
declared war on Austria.
4/8/1917. The US said
avoiding conscription could be punished with execution.
15/7/1917, US
Congress passed the Espionage Act. Section 1�
introduced heavy penalties, of up to 20 years in prison, for anyone
causing insubordination or disloyalty in the armed forces, or obstructing
recruitment; 2,000 prosecutions were brought under this measure. The Act also
empowered the US Postmaster to exclude from the mail any material in violation
of Section 1.
9/7/1917, US
President Woodrow
Wilson placed the export of food, fuel, iron and steel under
Government control, and sent warships to join the British blockade of Germany.
27/6/1917. American troops arrived in France to fight with the Allies.� The American expeditionary force was
commanded by General
John Pershing.
15/6/1917, The US
passed the Espionage Act, under
which persons could be fined or imprisoned for hindering the war effort; the
Federal Government took control of the US railways.
See France-Germany
for main events of World War One
18/5/1917. The US
introduced conscription under the
Selective Service Act. This required every male aged 21 to 31 to register
for the draft on 6/6/1917. Local Boards would select half a million men for
military service..
3/5/1917, US
destroyers arrived to join the British navy.
24/4/1917, In the US
the Liberty Loan Act authorised the issue of War Bonds.
20/4/1917. The US
broke off relations with Turkey.
6/4/1917. The USA declared war against Germany, with a
declaration signed by President Woodrow Wilson. This followed the
revealing by the British on 1/3/1917 of the Zimmerman Telegram, a missive from Germany to Mexico urging it to
declare war on the USA and recover its lost territories. The German Foreign
Minister, Arthur
Zimmerman, had sent a coded telegram to the German Ambassador in
Mexico offering an alliance against the US, in which Mexico would recover its
territories of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. British naval intelligence
intercepted and decoded the message and passed it to President Wilson. American
shipping bound for Britain had also been attacked by German submarines.
The Germans did not
believe that the US could raise and equip an effective army quickly enough to
make a difference in Europe, and that even if they did, it could not be
transported across a submarine-infested ocean. They seriously underestimated
the determination and resources of the US.
Meanwhile this day the King
and Queen of England attended a Thanksgiving service at St Pauls Cathedral for
the US�s entry into the �war for freedom�.
2/4/1917, US President Wilson asked the US Congress to pass a resolution to declare war
on Germany.
26/2/1917. News of
the sinking of the Cunard liner Laconia
by German U-boats reached capitol Hill just as Congress was debating measures
to protect US shipping from the growing menace of U boats in the Atrlantic.
Earlier in February 1917� a US ship, the Housatonic was sunk, making a total of
134 neutral ships destroyed by the Germans in the last 3 weeks. The US navy was
already mounting patrols to protect its ships in the Atlantic.
7/2/1917. All US citizens in Germany were held as hostages.
See
France-Germany for main events of World War One
3/2/1917. The USA broke off relations with Germany.
31/1/1917. Germany announced a policy of unrestricted naval
warfare. All ships, passenger or
cargo, found by Germans could now be sunk without warning. This was a
calculated risk by Germany because it
was bound to involve US shipping being sunk, and would therefore bring the USA
in against Germany. But Germany reckoned on the inevitability of the USA
entering the war against here soon anyway, and believed she could win the war
before this happened. The German Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Von
Holtzendorff, presented a memo to the Kaiser saying that if 600,000 tons of
Allied shipping could be sunk each month, within five months Britain would have
to surrender. In fact, in the worst month, April 1917, German U-boats sank
869,103 tons of shipping, 373 ships. The British adopted a convoy system,
despite fears that a convoy�s speed was limited to that of the slowest ship.
The Navy had feared it had too few destroyers for this job but then realised
that it had enough if only ocean-going ships, not cross-Channel traffic, was
guarded.
Meanwhile the British navy
deployed Q-ships, gunships disguised as merchant ships which lured U-boats to
the surface then opened their gun hatches at the last moment. The first trial
convoy ran from Gibraltar on 10/5/1917. The convoy system worked; of 26,604
vessels convoyed in 1917, only 147 were sunk. Meanwhile the Germans lost 65 of
their 139 U-boats. Meanwhile Allied shipping blockaded German trade, creating
shortages of tea and coffee, but more seriously, fertiliser shortages too. In
the final German land offensive of 1918, advancing German troops discovered
their privations were not being endured by the enemy, and German morale fell.
2/7/1917, Race riots in Illinois, 75 Black people were
killed.
9/3/1917, Dante Fascell, American politician (U.S. House
of Representatives from Florida) was born in Bridgehampton, New York (d. 1998).
8/3/1917. US marines landed in Cuba to help the civil authorities.
2/3/1917. The US Congress passed the Jones Act, making Puerto Rico a US territory.
20/2/1917, The USA bought the Dutch West Indies.
5/2/1917, Immigrants to the US were now required to pass a
literacy test. This law, inspired by the Immigration
Restriction League founded in 1894, had been vetoed by US President Wilson, but was
passed by Congress anyway. Those fleeing religious persecution were exempted,
which allowed more Russian Jews to enter.
29/1/1917. Congress passed the Immigration Act (or, Asiatic Barred Zone Act), requiring all
immigrants to know at least 30 words of English and banning all Asian migrants except Japanese. This followed on from
the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,
banning further immigration from China. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1917
for further details.
1916, The US
introduced its first tax on inherited wealth, an �estate tax�.
1/12/1916, The lights of the Statue of Liberty were turned on by President Wilson.
31/7/1916, Ammunition freight wagons exploded in New York,
killing 26.
3/7/1916, Hetty Green, the wealthiest women in the USA
died aged 80, leaving a fortune of US$ 100 million.
15/6/1916, In the US, the Democratic Convention nominated President
Wilson as presidential candidate.
10/6/1916, In the US, the Republican Convention nominated Charles E
Hughes as presidential candidate.
3/6/1916, US Congress established the Reserve Officers
Training Corps for officer training in colleges.
29/3/1916, Eugene McCarthy, US Senator, was born.
15/3/1916. The US mounted a punitive raid into Mexico in
revenge for the raids of Pancho Villa into New Mexico on 9/3/1916.
3/12/1915, German diplomats were expelled from Washington DC,
USA.
28/9/1915. Ethel
Greenglass Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
9/9/1915, The USA
expelled its Austrian Envoy.
US prepares for World War One, maintains neutrality despite Lusitania
attack
7/5/1915. The Lusitania, captained by William Thomas Turner,
was torpedoed. 1,400 people drowned
8 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, near Cork. 128 Americans were among the
1,208 casualties, including friends of President Woodrow Wilson and the
millionaire yachtsman Alfred Vanderbilt, as the ship made its way back to
Liverpool on a voyage from New York. America condemned the torpedoing of the
ship by a German submarine as an act of piracy and this brought the USA into
the War.
The
30,000 tonne Lusitania had sailed
from New York on 1/5/1915. She carried 1,257 passengers, including 128
Americans; 702 crew; and an estimated 3 stowaways. Her cargo list, later a
source of controversy, included small arms cartridges, uncharged shrapnel
shells, cheese, furs, and, oddly, 205 barrels of oysters. The Germans later
claimed the �oysters� were actually heavy munitions whose explosion had doomed
the ship. However there was no second explosion after the torpedo hit; there
were no heavy munitions and rifle rounds burned harmlessly, like firecrackers,
and did not explode.
Cunard
had shut down the Lusitania�s fourth boiler room to save on coal but even at
the reduced maximum speed of 21 knots it was reckoned she could outrun any German
U-boat. Passengers ignored warnings from the German Embassy published in the
New York Press not to cross the Atlantic under a belligerent flag, and the
lifeboat drills on board were palpably inadequate. The Lusitania had plenty of
lifeboats but most were unlaunchable because the ship listed heavily as water
poured through lower deck portholes, opened for air despite orders to close
them.� She sank within 18 minutes of
being hit.
The sinking of the Lusitania deepened American hostility
towards Germany but President Woodrow Wilson�s administration was split between
the hawks and doves, and it was another 2 years before America entered the war.
See
France-Germany for main events of World War One
20/4/1915. President
Wilson declared the USA to be strictly neutral in the Great War.
10/2/1915, US President
Wilson cautioned the WW1 combatants against attacks on US ships.
31/7/1914. The New York stock exchange closed with the
outbreak of World War One.
Panama Canal completed
15/8/1914, The 40-mile long Panama Canal
opened; construction work had begun on 4/7/1914. The first ship to pass through
the canal, this day, was the SS Ancon.
17/11/1913. The steamship Louise became the first ship through the Panama Canal.
10/10/1913. The Panama Canal was completed.
15/3/1915, US soldiers under General Pershing entered Mexico
to hunt down the revolutionary Pancho Villa.
28/1/1915, The US Coastguard was
founded at Washington DC.
8/5/1914, The US Congress officially recognised Mothers� Day, setting it as the second
Sunday in May thereafter.
21/4/1914, US troops occupied the Mexican city of Vera Cruz
to prevent German weaponry reaching the Mexican military.
20/4/1914, US National Guard troops shot dead 3 striking mine
workers, along with 2 women and 13 children, in Colorado.
26/3/1914, General William Westmoreland, Commander in
Chief of US forces in Vietnam 1964-68, was born (died 18/7/2005).
1913, The United States Department of Labor was created, to promote the
welfare of US workers.
1913, The Woolworth Building,
designed by Cass Gilbert, was completed. Until 1930 it was the highest
skyscraper in the city.
24/12/1913, The Italian
Hall Disaster. A stampede at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan killed
73 people (59 of them children) during a Christmas Eve celebration for over 400
striking miners and their families. An unknown person had yelled
"Fire!" (even though there wasn't one). Speculation included the
theory that an anti-union ally of mine management had yelled out the false
alarm in order to disrupt the party.
23/12/1913, The Federal
Reserve, the Central Banking system of the USA, was established.
31/10/1913, The Lincoln Highway, from New York to San
Francisco, was officially designated, see 12/12/1912.
14/5/1913,
The Rockefeller Foundation was established, by US industrialist James
Rockefeller.
8/5/1913,
US Congress approved the Underwood-Simmons Act, reducing import duties by 30%.
This was the first reduction in the US tariff wall since the civil war;
domestic industries suffered.
8/4/1913, The 17th
Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This provided for the
election of US Senators by direct popular vote, so ending the �millionaire�s
club� that had dominated the US Senate.
31/3/1913, New York�s Ellis Island, where new migrants were
processed, received a record 6,745 admissions.
27/3/1913, The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously in
Futrell v. Oldham that Junius Futrell was the Governor of Arkansas,
after Futrell
and former President William Kavanaugh Oldham had both claimed the
office
25/2/1913. In the
USA, Federal income tax was introduced. By the 16th Amendment the US Government was
authorised to raise a tax of between 1% and 6% on incomes of more than US$
4,000 (US$ 3,000 for bachelors) without having to share this tax revenue
between the States of the Union according to their population.
3/2/1913. In the USA, the 16th
Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This authorised the imposition of income tax.
1912, US President Taft passed an Act
stipulating how the US flag should look (see 1818). It then had 48 stars.
2/11/1912, An explosion on the battleship USS Vermont near
Norfolk, Virginia killed 2 and injured 4.
14/10/1912. President Roosevelt was shot and seriously
wounded by a demented man in Milwaukee.
12/9/1912, Carl Fisher and James Allison announced a plan
to build a motor road across the USA from New York to San Francisco, 3,389
miles (5,454 km) long. They hoped to get backing from Henry Ford but he declined. Then
they decided to name the road after former US President Abraham Lincoln, making it
eligible for a Government grant. They secured US$ 1.7 million this way, and the
Lincoln Highway was officially designated on 31/10/1913.
5/8/1912, In Chicago, the Progressive Party, nicknamed the "Bull Moose" Party to
rival the Republican elephant and Democrat donkey, called itself to order as
its founding convention opened at noon.
23/6/1912, A bridge over the Niagara Falls collapsed, killing
47.
22/6/1912, William Taft was nominated for a
2nd term as President.
12/4/1912, Clara Barton (born 25/12/1812 near Oxford,
Massachusetts) died at Glen Echo, Maryland. She founded the American Red Cross
in 1881, having worked in Europe with the Red Cross there to alleviate the
suffering caused by the Franco-Prussian War.
14/2/1912. Arizona became the 48th State of the USA.
6/1/1912. New Mexico became the 47th State of the USA.
3/11/1911, Death of Norman Jay Colman, the first US Secretary of Agriculture
(born 16/5/1827).
27/5/1911, Hubert Humphrey, US politician, was born (died
1978).
23/5/1911, The New York Public Library opened on 5th Avenue.
15/5/1911, After a long legal battle the US Supreme Court ordered that Standard Oil be broken up into 34
smaller companies, including Mobil Oil, Chevron and Exxon. Standard Oil had
become a huge monopoly through trust agreements signed by its leader John D
Rockerfeller in 1882, that gave it control over 75% of US refining
capacity, 90% of US pipelines, and 15% of crude oil products. Standard Oil also
had interests in gas, copper, iron, steel, shipping, banks, and railroad
companies. The State of Ohio challenged this monopoly in Court , and in 1890 US
Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act, giving the Federal US Government the power to regulate corporate
trusts that extended across State boundaries, In the 1904 Presidential Election
Theodore
Roosevelt began a trust-busting campaign, culminating in the 1911
Supreme Court decision against Standard Oil.
25/4/1911, Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, was born.
13/3/1911, L Ron Hubbard, US science fiction writer who
founded the scientologists, was born.
17/2/1911, The city of Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland,
was incorporated.
25/1/1911. US troops were sent to Rio Grande in the Mexican Civil
War.
1/10/1910, Bonnie Parker,
US outlaw of the Bonnie and Clyde duo, was born in Rowena, Texas.
30/9/1910, US
terrorist J.B. McNamara
planted a time bomb in a passage beneath the headquarters of the Los Angeles
Times newspaper, with 16 sticks of dynamite set to explode after working hours.
Two other bombs were placed outside the homes of the Times owner and the
secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. The bomb outside the
Times building detonated shortly after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, triggering an
explosion of natural gas lines and setting a fire that killed 20 newspaper
employees.
6/7/1910, The city of Redmond,
Oregon, was incorporated.
3/7/1910, Esau Jenkins,
African-American educator was born (died 1972).
19/6/1910. Fathers Day
was instituted in the USA.
18/6/1910, The city of Glendale, Arizona, was incorporated.
25/2/1910, Millicent Fenwick, US diplomat, was born.
16/12/1909, US marines
forced the resignation of President Jose Zelaya
of Nicaragua.
22/8/1909, 5 US
workers died in steel industry riots.
24/3/1909, Clyde Barrow, one of the Bonnie and Clyde outlaws, was born in Toledo, Texas.
14/11/1908, Joseph McCarthy, US politician and lawyer
noted for his purge against Communists,
was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin.
14/10/1908, George Harold Brown, US engineer, was born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
12/8/1908, The Model T Ford
began rolling off the production line. Priced at US$ 825, the cost was kept low
by mass production using standardised parts. Instead of one man assembling an
entire car, each worker preformed just one task as the car moved along a
conveyor belt. By this production line method, the time to assemble a car was
cut from 14 hours to 2. To motivate his workforce, Henry Ford raised wages from US$ 2.34 for a 9 hour day to US$ 5 for an 8 hour day.
Productivity improvements meant Ford could reduce the car�s price to US$ 300.
Over 15 million Model Ts were built
and by the time production ceased in 1927 half
the cars in the US were Fords.
4/8/1908, William Boyd
Allison, US legislator, died in Dubuque, Iowa (born 2/3/1829 in
Perry, Ohio).
26/7/1908. The Federal Bureau
of Investigation, or FBI, was established in Washington DC. Before this date
the US Department of Justice often called on Secret Service �operatives� to
help in its investigations. These operatives were well trained and dedicated
but expensive. They reported not to the Attorney General but to the chief of
the Secret Service.
Bonaparte
created a
special agents force, to report not to the chief of the Secret Service but to
the Chief Examiner, Stanley Finch, later head of the FBI. This force of 34
agents later became a permanent part of the Department of Justice.
2/7/1908, Thurgood Marshall, US lawyer, was born (died
1993)
10/5/1908. Mothers Day
was first celebrated in the USA.
21/3/1908, Abraham Maslow, US psychologist, was born
(died 1970).
US� migration policy
24/2/1908. Japan
and the USA agreed to limit Japanese migration to the US. President
Roosevelt was concerned at working-class migration into the US
following an influx of Chinese coolies. Chinese migration began to fall from
its peak of 107,000 a year; Japanese migration only began more recently and in
1900 there were only 25,000 Japanese in the whole of the USA.
17/4/1907, A record
all time high of 11,747 immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, New York, this day.
14/3/1907, The US
President forbade Japanese labourers from entering the USA.
16/12/1907, The US sent a fleet of 16 battleships on a
round-the-world tour, to demonstrate the military might of the USA.
23/11/1907, The Rockefeller institute was founded, with a US$
2.5 million gift from John Rockefeller.
16/11/1907. Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th State of the USA.
15/10/1907, The US town of Fontanet was almost totally
destroyed when its gunpowder factory exploded.
1/3/1907, The New York Salvation Army Bureau set up a
suicide counselling service.
Panama
Canal
5/1/1909. The Colombian Government formally
recognised Panamanian independence.
26/2/1907. President Roosevelt put the US army in charge of building the Panama
Canal.
26/11/1906, US President Theodore Roosevelt returned to
the USA from Central America, becoming
the first American President to travel abroad whilst in office. On his
17-day trip aboard the US battleship Louisiana he visited Puerto Rico then went on to Panama to see how the construction of the Panama Canal
was progressing.
4/7/1904. Work began on the 40 mile-long Panama Canal.� It opened on 15/8/1914.
18/11/1903, Panama granted the canal strip to
US, by treaty ratified on 26/2/1904.
3/11/1903. Panama revolted and declared itself independent from Colombia. On 6/11/1903 the US recognised Panamanian independence. On 12/8/1903
the Colombian Senate had rejected US plans for a canal at Panama. On 18/11/1903 the US and Panama signed a
treaty to build the Canal. See 22/1/1903.� On 2/11/1903 the US sent three warships to
Panama.
12/8/1903, The Colombian Senate rejected US
plans for a Canal at Panama, see 3/11/1903.
14/3/1903. The US Senate ratified construction
of the Panama Canal.
22/1/1903. The USA and Colombia signed a treaty
to allow construction of the Panama Canal. See 3/11/1903.
28/6/1902, The USA authorised the construction
of the Panama Canal.
18/1/1902. A US Commission chose Panama as the site for a new canal.
24/1/1907, Alexander Russell Alger, US soldier and
politician (born 27/2/1836 in Lafayette, Ohio) died in Washington DC.
9/10/1906. Death of Joseph Glidden
in the USA; he invented barbed wire.�������������������������
22/6/1906, US President Roosevelt sued John D Rockerfeller�s Standard Oil Company for operating a monopoly. See 15/5/1911.
18/4/1906. Major earthquake hit San
Francisco. Over
1,000 people were killed and large fires threatened upmarket homes on Nob Hill,
after the water mains were destroyed in the quake. Overall, 3,000 acres of the
city were devastated. The fire did more damage than the quake, it took 3 days
to bring the blaze under control and 490 blocks were destroyed.
21/3/1906, John D
Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist, was born.
17/2/1906, Alice Roosevelt,
daughter of President
Theodore Roosevelt, married Ohio Congressman Nicholas Longworth.
24/12/1905, The US industrialist Howard
Hughes was born.
11/12/1905, Edward Atkinson, US economist, died in Boston
(born 10/2/1827 in Brookline, Massachusetts).
19/6/1905. The world�s
first all motion picture cinema opened in Pittsburgh. For 10 cents
admission there was a film, Poor But
Honest, followed by The Baffled
Burglar, accompanied by a melody on the�
harp by Madame Durocher.
28/4/1905, Fitzhugh Lee, US Cavalry
General, died (born 19/11/1835).
28/2/1905, George Boutwell, US statesman, died in Groton,
Massachusetts (born in Brookline, Massachusetts 28/1/1818).
23/2/1905, The Rotary
Club was founded by Paul Harris and others, in offices in Dearborn,
Chicago.
18/2/1905, Jay Cooke, US financier, died (born
10/8/1821).
10/2/1905. The state of Wisconsin passed a tax on bachelors aged over 30.
1904, The US
Forestry Service was created, out of the Department of Agriculture, by
President Roosevelt.
1/12/1904, The Great
World Fair, at St Louis, USA, closed, having had millions of visitors from
all over the world.
4/10/1904, Death of French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi,
designer of the Statue of Liberty.
30/9/1904, George Hoar, US politician, died (born
29/8/1836).
3/6/1904, Robert Keep, US educator, died (born
26/4/1844).
23/5/1904, Introduction of cheap steerage rates encouraged
migration from Europe to the USA.
30/4/1904, The St Louis Exhibition opened.
22/4/1904. Robert Oppenheimer, American scientist who developed
the US atomic bomb at Los Alamos, was born in New York City.
22/3/1904. In the USA, the Daily
Illustrated Mirror carried the world�s first colour picture in a newspaper.
15/2/1904, Marcus Hanna, US politician, died (born
24/9/1837).
7/2/1904. A major fire destroyed much of the centre of
Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
4/1/1904, The US Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans
could enter the US freely, but were not entitled to US citizenship.
2/1/1904, James Longstreet, US Confederate soldier, died
(born 8/2/1821).
30/12/1903, Major fire at a Chicago theatre, 602 killed in a
panic stampede for the exit.
1/8/1903, Calamity Jane, prominent figure in the US Wild
West, died of pneumonia this day, aged 51 (born 1/5/1852).
22/7/1903, Cassius Clay, US politician, died (born
19/10/1818).
4/7/1903, President Roosevelt of the USA inaugurated the
Pacific Communications Cable with a global message.
22/4/1903, The new New York Stock Exchange opened at 18 Broad
Street.
21/3/1903, In the US, the grievances that caused the 1902
miners� strike were resolved with a 10% pay rise and shorter working day, The
mine owners, however, refused to recognise the United Mine Workers Union.
3/3/1903. The USA passed a bill to limit immigration and ban
�undesirables�.
15/2/1903, The first teddy bear was sold from Michtom�s candy
store, New York. The origin of teddy bears was that in 1902 on a hunting trip
by President Theodore Roosevelt, his assistants tied a bear to a tree so he
could shoot it; Roosevelt refused such unsporting conduct and set the bear free
instead.
5/2/1903, Henry Dawes, US lawyer, died (born 30/10/1816).
1902, (see also Prisons) Death of John Peter
Atgeld (born 1847), who was a prison reformer ahead of his time. A
German-born lawyer in Chicago, he was concerned about how the poor found it
difficult to access justice. He was elected Governor of Illinois in 1892 and
succeeded in passing laws regulating child labour and loosening the monopolies
enjoyed by railways and tramways companies. He pardoned three anarchists
imprisoned since 1886, and condemned President Cleveland for sending in troops to
disrupt a railway strike. However he was then vilified by the press as a
�Illinois Jacobin� and was defeated when seeking re-election in 1896.
31/12/1902, In� a test
of the Monroe doctrine, British
and German
naval ships seized the Venezuelan navy and shelled a fort in Caracas,
to enforce payment for property seized without compensation during the 1899
revolution. The US pressurised the two countries to end the blockade and refer
the matter to the international court in The Hague.
15/10/1902, US President Roosevelt threatened to send in
troops to end a miner�s strike.
15/9/1902, Horace Gray, US jurist, died (born 24/3/1828).
22/8/1902, Theodore Roosevelt became the first incumbent
US President to travel by car. He very much preferred horse and carriage.
26/7/1902, Charles Adams, US historian (born 24/1/1835)
died.
20/7/1902, John MacKay, US industrialist, died (born
28/11/1831).
20/5/1902, Cuba gained dependence, from US military rule, see
1/1/1899.
11/5/1902, Charles Collis, US soldier, died aged 64.
7/5/1902, The U.S. House of Representatives began
consideration of statehood for the U.S. territories of Oklahoma, Arizona and
New Mexico.
14/4/1902, US trader KC Penney opened his first store, in Kemmerer,
Wyoming.
3/3/1902, In the USA, the Supreme Court banned dealing in
�financial futures�.
16/2/1902, George Carter Needham, US evangelist, died
aged 56.
2/12/1901, In the Insular Case, the US Supreme Court ruled
that Puerto Ricans and inhabitants of other US overseas territories are US
Nationals, but not US citizens, as the US Constitution only applied to areas
incorporated by Congress.
30/11/1901, In the USA, Christmas tree lights were developed
by the Edison Electric Company.
18/11/1901. US journalist and statistician George Gallup was born in Jefferson, Iowa.
29/10/1901, Anarchist
Leon
Czolgosz was executed by electrocution for assassinating US President
McKinley
26/10/1901, William Holland, US abolitionist, died aged
87.
25/10/1901, A serious fire killed 19 people and left another
12 badly injured in Philadelphia, USA. The fire began in the 8-floor Hu8nt
& Wilkinson furniture company and spread to three other buildings. The
conflagration began in the basement and spread up the lift shaft.
24/10/1901, Ann Edson Taylor rode over the Niagara Falls
in a padded barrel, and lived to tell the tale.
12/10/1901, President Theodore Roosevelt renamed the Executive
Mansion as The White House.
10/9/1901, US anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested for her part on the
plot to kill President
McKinley.
3/9/1901, Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice-President of the
USA, spoke the phrase �speak softly and carry a big stick�. Meaning use
diplomatic negotiations but have military back up if needed. This became known
as �big stick diplomacy�.
6/8/1901, The town of Lawton, Oklahoma, came into being as
the United States Land Office began auctioning lots divided from a 320-acre
townsite located near the U.S. Army's Fort Sill.
29/7/1901, The Socialist Party of America was founded at
Indianapolis.
17/7/1901, Daniel Butterfield, US soldier, died (born
1831).
4/7/1901, US Republican,
Taft,
was appointed Governor of the Philippines. replacing a former military government with civilian
rule. He announced an amnesty for all former rebels who took an oath of
allegiance to the USA.
25/2/1901, �Zeppo� Marx, the youngest of the Marx Brothers,
who became their agent, was born in New York City as Herbert.
24/2/1901, After 53 ballots without any single candidate
attaining a majority, the legislature of Oregon elected former Senator John H.
Mitchell to be one of its two United States Senators.
8/2/1901, Benjamin Prentiss, US Major General who had
distinguished himself at the Battle of Shiloh, died aged 81.
10/1/1901, Major oil discovery in Texas, USA. The salt dome
of Spindletop had been suspected of containing oil since 1865; this day oil was
struck; a gush of oil 6 inches wide rose over 200 feet, and was visible for
over 10 miles. The population of nearby Beaumont rapidly rose from 10,000 to
over 50,000, as oil production at Spindletop reached 100,000 barrels per day.
Oil production in the area lasted until 1950.
27/11/1900, Cushman Davis,
US politician, died (born 16/6/1838).
20/9/1900, John
McClernand, US soldier, died (born 30/5/1812)
8/9/1900, Over 5,000 were killed
when a hurricane hit Galveston, Texas.
5/7/1900, Henry Barnard,
US educationalist, died in Hartford, Connecticut born in Hartford, Connecticut
24/1/1811).
21/6/1900, In the
US, the Republican Party Convention renominated McKinley for Presidency and Theodore Roosevelt
for vice-Presidency.
9/5/1900, Striking tramway workers in St Louis, USA, blew up a tramcar.
16/4/1900. The world�s first
book of stamps was issued, in the USA.
8/4/1900, In the first major event associated with the
introduction of Buddhism to the United States, Buddha's birthday was celebrated
in an elaborate ceremony in San Francisco. The Buddhist mission had begun its
outreach to European-Americans in weekly lectures beginning on January 4.
5/2/1900, Adlai Stevenson, US politician, was born (died
1965).
4/1/1900, Jacob Cox, US General, died (born 27/10/1828).
2/1/1900. New York�s first
electric omnibus began operating.
23/12/1899, Dorman Eaton, US lawyer, died (born
27/6/1823).
22/12/1899, Dwight Moody, US evangelist, died (born
5/2/1837).
2/12/1899. In Washington, the USA, Britain, and Germany signed
a treaty dividing the Samoan Islands
between the USA and Germany.
21/11/1899, Garrett Hobart, US Vice-President, died (born
3/6/1844).
5/10/1899, James Harlan, US politician, died (born
26/8/1820).
9/4/1899, Stephen Field, US jurist, died (born
4/11/1816).
6/9/1899. The US
Secretary of State, John Hay, embarked
on an �open door� policy towards China. He
also urged the European powers, and Japan, to respect China�s territorial
integrity and pursue a policy of free
trade with China.
31/7/1899, Daniel Brinton, US archaeologist, died (born
30/5/1837).
1/7/1899, The first
juvenile court sat, at Cork County Court, Chicago.
26/6/1889, Simon Cameron, US politician, died (born
8/3/1799).
24/5/1889, Laura Bridgman, US blind deaf mute, died (born
21/12/1829).
18/3/1899, Othniel Charles Marsh, US palaeontologist,
died in new Haven, Connecticut.
17/1/1899, Al Capone, American gangster who operated in
Chicago, was born in Naples, Italy.
19/11/1898, Don Carlos Buell, US soldier, died (born
23/3/1818).
28/9/1898, Thomas Bayard, US statesman, died in Dedham,
Massachusett (born in Wilmington, Delaware, 29/10/1828).
US battle for the Philippines, 1898-1899 See also Philippines
for more details of the Philippine independence struggle against the USA
24/11/1899. US
forces finally captured Luzon in the Philippines after nine months of jungle
warfare. The US was awarded the Philippines in 1898 but found it hard to
subdue the territory. Insurrectionist leader Emilio Aguinaldo wanted
independence and declared the Malolos Republic in 1898. Aguinaldo continued a
guerrilla war from the mountains.
4/2/1899, A
rebellion against US rule broke out on the Philippines. The US had backed
General Emilio Aguinaldo against Spanish colonial rule (see 10/12/1898), but
instead of independence the Philippines came under US rule.
1/1/1899, The official date on which US military rule
succeeded Spanish rule of Cuba.
12/12/1898, The Treaty of
Paris ended the US-Spanish war.
10/12/1898, The war between Spain
and the USA ended. The USA acquired Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and. for a US$20 million
indemnity, the Philippines. See 4/2/1899.
18/10/1898, The USA took formal possession
of Puerto Rico from Spain.
13/8/1898,
US forces captured Manila, capital of the Philippines.
28/7/1898,
Puerto Rico surrendered to US forces.
3/7/1898,
The US navy destroyed a Spanish fleet attempting to
escape the US blockade on the port of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.� On 5/7/1898 US forces captured Santiago
itself.
20/6/1898,
The US navy seized the island of Guam.
1/5/1898, US forces under George Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet
in Manila Bay, Philippines.
24/4/1898, The United States
declared war on Spain as a result of the
sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbour on 15 February 1898.
Fighting began in the Philippine Islands at the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May
1898, where Commodore
George Dewey destroyed a Spanish fleet. The war ended when the USA
and Spain signed a peace treaty in Paris on 10 December 1898. As a result Spain
lost control over the remains of its empire, including Cuba.
20/4/1898, The US demanded the withdrawal of Spanish troops from
Cuba.
15/2/1898, The US warship Maine blew up in Havana harbour,
Cuba.� Spanish sabotage was
suspected.� The USA declared war on Spain
on 24/4/1898.
27/3/1898, Gloria Swanson, American silent-film star, was
born.
1/1/1898. The boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond,
Manhattan, and The Bronx united to form
Greater New York.
22/2/1897, Darius Couch, US soldier, died (born
23/7/1822).
19/2/1897. The Women�s Institute organisation was
founded at Stoney Creek in Ontario by Mrs Hoodless. The first W I meeting was
on 25/9/1897. The W I idea was brought to England by a Mrs Watt during World
War One.
13/1/1897, Mr
and Mrs Bradley Martin, members of
New York�s �top 400�, threw an extremely extravagant party in which the
ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria was made into a replica of Versailles. This
event, in the face of an economic recession, attracted much criticism in the
popular press, and the Martins fled to England.
26/6/1896. The world�s first permanent cinema opened
in New Orleans; admission was 10 cents. Britain�s first cinema opened in
Islington on 5/8/1901, and charged between 6d and 3s for entry. However by
World War One most cinemas were only charging 3d or 6d. The first drive in cinema opened on
6/6/1933 in Camden, New Jersey, and could hold 400 cars.
22/6/1896, Benjamin Bristol, US politician, died (born
20/6/1832).
26/5/1896, In the USA, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
shares index was first published.
5/5/1896, Silas Adams, US politician died (born 1839)
6/3/1896, Charles Brady King test-drove a car he had
built in Detroit, the first car ever driven in what would become known as Motor
City.
4/1/1896. Utah became the 45th State of the USA.
17/12/1895. Relations
between the US and Britain were under severe strain because of a border dispute
between Guiana and Venezuela.
26/8/1895. A hydroelectric
plant designed by Nikola Tesla and built by Westinghouse opened
at Niagara Falls.
28/5/1895, Walter Gresham, US statesman, died (born
28/5/1895).
24/5/1895, Hugh McCulloch, US financier, died (born
7/12/1808).
31/1/1895, Ebenezer Hoar, US politician, died (born
21/2/1816).
1/1/1895, J Edgar Hoover, American criminologist and
founder of the FBI, was born in Washington DC.
14/12/1894. Eugene Debs, President of the American Railway
Union, was jailed for 6 months for ignoring an injunction to end the Pullman
strike. The strike began on 11/5/1894 when the Pullman Company reduced wages
but did not cut rents for workers living in company housing.� The strike turned violent with riots and
burning or railroad cars. Attorney-General Richard Olney obtained an injunction
to end the strike on the grounds it was obstructing the mail, and when this was
ignored federal troops arrived in Chicago to enforce the court order. By
10/7/1894 the strike was broken.
22/11/1894. The USA and Japan signed a commercial treaty.
7/10/1894. Andrew Curtin, US politician, died (born
22/4/1817).
1/5/1894. David Coxey, who led a march of 100,000
unemployed to the capital, Washington, to demand economic reform, was arrested.
13/4/1894, David Field, US lawyer, died (born 13/2/1805).
28/3/1894, George Curtis, US lawyer, died (born
28/11/1812).
2/3/1894, Jubal Anderson Early, US Confederate General
(born 3/11/1816 in Franklin County, Virginia) died in Lynchburg, Virginia.
3/1/1894, Elizabeth Peabody, American educator
and founder in 1960 of the first kindergarten in the US, died aged 89.
26/1/1893, Abner Doubleday, US soldier, died (born
26/6/1819).
11/1/1893, Benjamin Butler, US politician, died (born
5/11/1818).
11/5/1893, Samuel Armstrong, US soldier and
philanthropist, died in Hampton, Virginia (born 30/1/1839 in Maui, Hawaii).
5/5/1893, Panic selling hit the New York Stock exchange. In
the ensuing crash, some 500 banks and 15,000 companies went bankrupt.
20/2/1893, Pierre Beauregard, American Confederate General, died.
27/1/1893, James Blaine, US statesman, died in Washington
DC (born in Pennsylvania 31/1/1830).
15/12/1892, Paul Getty, US oil tycoon, was born in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
2/12/1892, Jay Gould, US financier, died (born
27/5/1836).
17/8/1892, Mae West, US film actress, was born in Brooklyn,
New York.� She was the daughter of a
boxer.
30/3/1892, Roger Mills, US politician, was born.
US restricts immigration, especially from China
1902.The Chinese Exclusion Act
was extended to include those of Oriental origin from Hawaii and the
Philippines, and such exclusion was made permanent.
17/3/1894, The USA and China signed a Chinese Exclusion
Treaty, whereby China consented to the exclusion of Chinese labourers from
migration to the USA. This year the US established an Immigration Bureau, and a
group of Boston citizens formed an Immigration Restriction League, which
campaigned for literacy tests for immigrants to the US. This was aimed against
Chinese, Slavs and Latin-Americans.
5/5/1892, US Congress passed the Geary Chinese Exclusion
Act, extending all restrictions on Chinese immigration to the USA for another
10 years, and requiring all existing Chinese immigrants to register or face
deportation.
1/1/1892, New York opened an immigration office on Ellis Island to cope with the flood of
immigrants to the USA.
Many were fleeing political and religious
persecution in Russia and Central Europe. Named after Samuel Ellis, who owned
the island in the 1770s, the new facility replaced older cramped facilities at
The Battery on Manhattan Island.
3/3/1891, US Congress voted to establish a US Office of
Superintendent of Immigration.
1/10/1888, In an attempt to curb
Chinese immigration, US Congress ruled that any Chinese
worker who had left the USA could not return again.
4/7/1891, Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President of the USA,
died (born 27/8/1809).
7/4/1891, Phineas T Barnum, American circus showman,
died aged 80.
21/3/1891, Joseph Johnston, US Confederate General, died.
4/3/1891, US Congress passed the Copyright Act, to protect authors, composers and artists.
14/2/1891, William Sherman, Union Army commander in the
American Civil War, died in New York City.
17/1/1891, George Bancroft, US politician, died in
Washington (born in Worcester, Massachusetts 3/10/1800).
7/1/1891, Charles Devens, US lawyer, died (born
4/4/1820).
24/11/1890, August Belmont, US financier, died in New York
(born in Prussia 8/12/1816).
6/8/1890, In New York�s Auburn prison, the electric chair was used for the first time on the
murderer William
Kemmler. This method of execution was attacked as constituting
�cruel and unusual punishment� but was upheld in the US State and Federal
Courts. By 1906 115 murderers had been executed by �electrothanasia�, and the
method was had also adopted by the US States of Ohio (1896), Massachusetts
(1898), New Jersey (1906), Virginia (1908) and North Carolina (1910).
13/7/1890, John Fremont, explorer of the US Midwest, died
(21/1/1813).
10/7/1890, Wyoming was
admitted as the 44th State
of the USA.
3/7/1890, Idaho became the
43rd State of the Union.
2/7/1890, The US government passed
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, banning trade monopolies. With more than 90%
of the US oil trade in the hands of the Rockerfeller family, and sugar, wheat,
and alcohol prices also governed by mysterious �trusts�, the US government felt
that these trusts threatened the economic structure of the USA. A judge, Mr
Justice Harlan, said that these trusts were another form of slavery, as capital
became concentrated in the hands of a few.
1/6/1890, The US Census Bureau began using Herman
Hollerith�s tabulating machine to count census
returns.� Hollerith�s company eventually
became IBM.
14/4/1890, The
Pan-American Union was established at the first International Congress of
American States.
28/3/1890, Washington
State University was established
in Pullman, Washington.
8/3/1890, North
Dakota State University was founded in Fargo, North Dakota.
11/11/1889. Washington became the 42nd State of the Union.
8/11/1889, Montana became the 41st State of the Union.
2/11/1889, North and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th States of the Union.
24/9/1889, Daniel Hill, US Confederate soldier, died
(born 11/7/1821).
3/6/1889, The first
�long-distance� electric power transmission
line in the US was completed.� It ran
14 miles from a generator at Williamette Falls to downtown Portland, Oregon.
22/4/1889, The great
land rush in the US, see 2/5/1890.
22/3/1889, Stanley Matthews, US jurist, died (born
21/7/1824).
8/3/1889, John Ericsson, Swedish-US inventor and
engineer, died in New York City (born in Langbanshyttan, Sweden, 31/7/1803).
22/2/1889, US President Grover Cleveland signed a Bill admitting North and South
Dakota, Montana, and Washington, as US States.
25/10/1888,
Richard Byrd,
US naval officer and polar explorer, was born in Winchester, Virginia.
9/10/1888,
The 555-foot high white marble Washington
Monument was opened.� It was designed
by Robert Mills.
18/4/1888,
Roscoe Conkling,
US lawyer and politician, died in New York City (born 30/10/1829 in Albany, New
York).
4/3/1888,
Amos Alcott, US educationalist, born 29/11/1799, died.
25/12/1887, Conrad Hilton, American hotelier, was born in
San Antonio, New Mexico.
23/11/1887, Violence erupted in a sugar cane workers strike in
Louisiana, and at least 20 Black people were killed.
8/11/1887, John Henry Holliday, US gunfighter, died.
8/3/1887, Henry Beecher, US preacher, died in Brooklyn
(born in Litchfield, Connecticut 24/6/1813).
21/2/1887, James Geddes, US soldier, died (born
19/3/1827).
26/12/1886, John Logan, US politician, died.
21/11/1886, Charles Adams, US diplomat (born 18/8/1807 in
Boston) died in Boston.
28/10/1886, The Statue of Liberty in New York was
unveiled by President
Grover Cleveland.�
It was presented by France to mark the 100th
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and designed by the French
sculptor Auguste Bartholdi; it took more than nine years to complete.
31/8/1886, Earthquake
hit Charleston, USA. .27 were killed and 90% of the city�s buildings were
damaged, with US$5 million incurred. However the city soon recovered.
22/8/1886, Amos
Lawrence, US philanthropist, died (born
31/7/1814).
28/5/1886, John Bartlett,
US historian, died in Providence (born in Providence, Rhode Island 23/10/1805).
20/5/1885, Frederick Frelinghuysen, US
statesman, died (born 4/8/1817).
4/5/1886, The
Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago. A bomb exploded at a trades union rally,
killing 7 policemen and injuring 70 other people. Four people were executed by
the State of Illinois, and the incident greatly eroded public support for the
trades union movement.
1/5/1886, Over 100,00 workers across the USA went on strike for an 8 hour day. A
bomb thrown by Anarchists in Chicago on 4/5/1886 killed 7 police and strikers
and injured 60 more. The perpetrator was never found but a judge ruled that
seven who had incited the event were as guilty and sentenced them to death. One
committed suicide, four were executed, and two had their sentences commuted.
9/2/1886, Winfield Hancock, US General, died (born
14/2/1824).
14/11/1885, Horace Chaflin, US merchant, died (born
18/12/1811).
10/9/1885, The town of Stafford, Kansas, was officially
incorporated as such. The boundaries of Stafford County were fixed by the US
legislature in 1868, and was named in honour of Lewis Stafford, a Civil War
soldier who was killed ion the Battle of Young�s Point. For several years the
county had no permanent settlers, but was inhabited by buffalo hunters,
cowboys, and surveyors. The first permanent inhabitants arrived in May 1874.
Early industries included the gathering of buffalo hides and bones left by
earlier settlers; buffalo bones fetched US$3-US$9 a ton. Many of the first
houses were made of earth, or sod, hence the first town here was called
�Sod-Town�, renamed Stafford in 1885.
23/7/1885, Ulysses Grant, American commander of the Union
Army, Republican politician and 18th President from 1869 to 1877,
died of cancer in Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, New York State.
19/6/1885. The Statue
of Liberty arrived in New York from France. The statue was dedicated to the
US-France friendship on 28/10/1886 by President Cleveland. The Statue was 300
foot high, of a woman holding a tablet with the date 4 July 1776 on it. The 225
ton structure made of hand-hammered copper sheet on a steel frame was assembled
in France then dismantled and shipped to the USA.
4/5/1885, Irvin McDowell, US soldier, died (born
15/10/1818).
24/2/1885, Chester Nimitz, American admiral and commander
in the Pacific during World War II, was born in Fredericksburg, Texas.
13/1/1885, Schuyler Colfax, US politician, died (born
23/3/1823).
16/6/1884, The first
purpose-built roller coaster, the Switchback railway, opened at Coney Island,
New York.
4/7/1884, The Statue of Liberty was formally presented to US
Minister Morton by Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps.
21/5/1884, The Statue
of Liberty was completed. Work on it was begun in 1874 by Auguste
Bartholdi, in Paris.
21/3/1884, Ezra Abbot, US scholar of the Bible, died in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
27/12/1883, Andrew Humphreys, US soldier, died (born
2/11/1810).
23/10/1883, The Metropolitan Opera House in New York opened.
4/4/1883, Death of Peter Cooper, US
inventor and steam locomotive designer (born 12/2/1791).
14/2/1883, Edwin Morgan, US politician,
died (born 8/2/1811).
16/1/1883, The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in the USA instituted a more
meritocratic system of recruitment to the Civil Service, replacing the former
�spoils� system.
1882, The US
passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, to halt Chinese immigration into the
USA. See 29/1/1917.
30/6/1882, Charles Guiteau, who shot and
killed US President James Garfield on
6/7/1881, was hanged.
3/4/1882, Jesse James, US outlaw, died.
26/10/1881, The
gunfight at the OK Corral, Arizona, took place between Doc Holliday and Wyatt,
Virgil
and Morgan
Earp
and the Clantons
and McLaurys.
13/9/1881, Ambrose
Burnside, US soldier, died (born 23/5/1824).
3/8/1881, William George Fargo,
co-founder of the Wells Fargo Express
in 1852, died aged 65.
4/7/1881, The outlaw William H Bonney,
or Billy the Kid, born 23/11/1859, was shot dead in New Mexico by lawman Pat
Garrett. He reputedly killed his first man before he was a teenager.
31/12/1880, George Marshal, US general and politician who
originated the Marshal Plan for the
post World War Two reconstruction of Europe, was born in Uniontown,
Pennsylvania.
27/11/1880, George Crittenden, US soldier, died (born
20/3/1812).
1/6/1880, The first public telephone call box was
installed, in New Haven, Connecticut.
8/3/1880. President Hayes of America declared that the
USA will have jurisdiction over any canal built across Panama.
26/1/1880, Douglas MacArthur, American military commander
in the south-west Pacific in World War Two, was born near Little Rock,
Arkansas.
8/11/1879, Margaret Eaton, acquaintance of US President
Jackson, died (born 1796).
1/11/1879, Zachariah Chandler, US politician, died (born
10/12/1813)
13/10/1879, Henry Carey, US economist, died (born 15/12/1793).
30/8/1879, John Hood, US soldier, died (born 1831)
26/6/1879, Henry Richard Anderson, US soldier, died in
Beaufort, South Carolina (born 7/10/1821 in South Carolina).
21/4/1879, John Dix, US politician, died (born
24/7/1798).
9/3/1879, Elihu Burritt, US philanthropist, died (born
8/12/1810)
2/1/1879, Caleb Cushing, US statesman, died at
Newburyport, |Massachusetts.
10/12/1878, Henry Wells, partner of William Fargo, died.
4/10/1878, The first Chinese Embassy in the USA opened, in
Washington DC.
12/6/1878, Benjamin Bonneville, US military engineer and
explorer, died in Foret Smith, Arkansas. An extinct glacial lake which once
covered NW Utah is named in his honour.
28/1/1878, America�s first commercial telephone switchboard
exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut.
1/11/1877, Oliver Morton, US politician,
died (born 4/8/1823).
29/10/1877, Nathan Forrest, US Confederate General, died
(born 13/7/1821).
8/4/1877, William Muhlenberg, US
philanthropist, died (born 16/9/1796).
27/9/1876, Braxton Bragg, US soldier, died in Galveston,
Texas (born in North Carolina 22/3/1817).
2/8/1876, Death of Wild Bill Hickok, Marshall of Kansas City, who
gunned down many outlaws; he was shot in the back this day.
1/8/1876, Colorado became the 38th State of the USA.
10/2/1876, Reverdy Johnson, US politician, died (born
21/5/1796).
9/1/1876, Samuel Howe, US philanthropist, died (born
10/11/1801).
2/10/1875, San Francisco�s Palace Hotel opened.
10/6/1875, Duff Green, US politician, died (born 15/8/1791).
17/5/1875, The Kentucky Derby horse race, USA, was first run.
17/12/1874, William Cushing, US naval officer, died (born
4/11/1842).
9/12/1874, Ezra Cornell, US industrialist who founded Cornell University
in Ithaca, died.
7/12/1874, Race riots in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 75 Black
people were killed.
17/9/1874, The White League rioted against the Black
Government in New Orleans,USA.
15/9/1874, Benjamin Curtis, US jurist, died (born
4/11/1809).
15/4/1874, Jules Gabriel Fisher, Louisiana State Senator,
was born (died 14/5/1943).
29/1/1874, John D Rockefeller, US entrepreneur, was born.
23/12/1873, Sarah Grimke, US social reformer, died (born
6/11/1792).
19/11/1873, John Hale, US politician, died (born 31/3/1806).
9/10/1873, Charles Walgreen, US entrepreneur who founded
Walgreens, was born.
7/5/1873, Salmon Chase, US jurist, died (born
13/1/1808).
6/5/1873, John Brodhead, US historical scholar, died
(born 2/1/1814).
13/4/1873, In the USA, the Colefax Massacre occurred when 300
armed White men clashed with militant African-Americans over a disputed local
election result in Louisiana. Over 100 African Americans were killed.
4/3/1873, The New York
Daily Graphic became the world�s first illustrated daily newspaper.
1/2/1873, Matthew Maury, US naval officer, died (born
24/1/1806).
5/12/1872, The Marie Celeste was spotted
drifting, crewless, in the Atlantic near The Azores, and was boarded by the
crew of the Dei Gratia. The 206 ton Marie Celeste had left New
York on 7/11/1872, captained by Benjamin Briggs, with his wife, daughter and
eight crew on its way to Genoa, with a cargo of 1,700 barrels of alcohol, which
was found intact. The lifeboat was missing but the captain�s table was set for
a meal that was never eaten.
9/11/1872, A great
fire broke out in the commercial district of Boston, USA, on
the Saturday night. It burned until Sunday 10th, and destroyed 767
buildings filled with merchandise. 14 lives and an estimated US$75million of
goods were lost. Very little residential property was lost and the commercial
district was soon rebuilt with better buildings and straighter roads.
7/11/1872, The 282 ton brigantine Marie Celeste set
sail from New York on her ill-fated journey.
6/11/1872, George Meade, US soldier, died.
25/9/1872, Peter Cartwright, US Methodist preacher, died
(born 1/9/1785).
9/4/1872, Erastus Corning, US politician and
industrialist, died (born 14/12/1994).
25/1/1872, Richard Ewell, US soldier, died (born
2/2/1817).
6/1/1872, James Fisk, US financier, was shot and killed
(born 1/4/1834).
26/10/1871, Thomas Ewing, US politician, died (born
28/12/1789).
17/10/1871, Death of Sylvester Mowry (born 17/1/1833). He was a
miner and land speculator who promoted the establishment of the Arizona
Territory.
11/10/1871, The Great
Fire of Chicago ended.
8/10/1871, The Great
Fire of Chicago started, killing 300 people. 90,000 were made homeless and
US$ 200 million damage was done.� The
fire ended on 11/10/1871; it was supposedly started in Mrs O�Leary�s barn in De
Koven Street, by a cow upsetting a lantern. Four square miles of the city were
destroyed, as a long spell of dry weather had made buildings tinder-dry.
11/7/1871, In New York City the ferryboat SS Westfield
exploded, killing 104 people. Her boiler was severely corroded, but safety
standards remained lax.
28/4/1871, James Mason, US politician, died (born
3/11/1798).
20/4/1871, In the
US, the Klu Klux Klan Act outlawed paramilitary organisations
such as the Klu Klux Klan.
24/12/1870, Albert Barnes,
US theologian, died in Philadelphia (born in Rome, New York State, 1/12/1798).
12/10/1870, Robert E Lee, US Confederate General during the Civil War, died in Lexington,
Virginia.
17/8/1870, Mount Rainier, Washington, was first successfully
climbed.
14/7/1870, David Farragut, US naval hero of the Civil War, died in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire.
22/6/1870, The US Department of Justice was established.
23/2/1870, Anson Burlingame, US statesman, died (born
14/11/1820).
9/2/1870, The United States weather service was published.
3/2/1870, In the
US, the Fifteenth
Amendment gave every US citizen, regardless of race, the right to
vote.
10/9/1869, John Bell,
US politician, died (born near Nashville, Tennessee 15/2/1797).
6/9/1869, William
Fessenden, US politician, died (born 16/10/1806).
13/7/1869,
Anti-Chinese-labourer riots in San Francisco.
10/5/1869, The first railroad
across the USA from east to west, 1,776 miles long, was completed after three years work at a
ceremony west of Ogden, in Utah. The Union Pacific Line finally met with the
Central Pacific Line. Both companies raced to lay as much track as possible as
they converged, spurred on by government payments of US$16,000 per mile, more
for mountainous areas. A golden spike was driven in at Promontory Point, Utah,
where the railways met. Travel time between New York and San Francisco was slashed from 3
months to 8 days.
8/4/1869, Harvey Cushing, US surgeon, was born.
7/11/1868, Royal Samuel Copeland, US politician, was born
in Michigan.
3/11/1868, Ulysses S Grant, ultimate commander of the
Union armies in the Civil War, was elected President of the USA.
9/10/1868, Howell Cobb, US politician, died (born
7/9/1815).
24/8/1868, George J Adler, US lexicographer (born 1821) died.
28/7/1868, The USA and China signed the Burlingame Treaty at
Washington DC, defining mutual rights of migration between the two countries.
25/7/1868, President Johnson signed an Act creating the territory of Wyoming.
9/7/1868, The US
passed the Fourteenth Amendment, during the period of
�reconstruction� following the conclusion of the Civil War. It guaranteed equality
before the law for Black and White people alike, specifically including
ex-slaves here, and prohibited any State from �abridging their privileges�
or� denying them �equal protection of the
laws�. However, due to the fact that corporations are also �persons� before the
law, the 14th
Amendment began to be used for purposes it was not intended for. The 14th Amendment was used
to shield companies from government regulation, and even, before the 1950s, to
justify racial discrimination because it contained the words �separate but
equal�. Later, in the 1980s, it was still being used to block so-called
�positive discrimination� in favour of racial minorities.
23/5/1868, Kit Carson,
US soldier and fur trapper who did much to open up the West to White settlers,
died (born 24/12/1809).
13/3/1868, First
impeachment trial of a US President. Andrew Johnson was accused of illegally
removing a federal office holder. He was found not guilty and remained in
office until the end of his term.
25/2/1868, Andrew Johnson, 17th US President 1865-69, was impeached.
30/10/1867, John Albion Andrew, US politician, died in
Boston (born 31/5/1818 in Windham, Maine).
28/8/1867, The Midway Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were
claimed for the US by Captain Reynolds.
29/7/1867, Charles Anthon, US classicist, died in New
York (born 19/11/1797 in New York City).
1/3/1867, Nebraska became the 37th State of the Union.
11/7/1866, James Lane, US politician, died.
13/4/1866, Butch Cassidy, American outlaw, was born.
4/3/1866, Alexander Campbell, US religious leader, died
(born 12/9/1788).
12/2/1866. Invoking the Monroe
Doctrine, the USA called for the withdrawal
of French troops from Mexico.
Maximilian,
having failed to secure recognition of his regime from the US, now sought help
from Napoleon
III and the Pope, but his cause was hopeless.
25/12/1865, The Union
stockyards at Chicago opened, on 345 acres of reclaimed swampland SW of the
city. The shutdown of the Mississippi River as a trade route due to the US
Civil War meant that Chicago replaced Cincinnati, Louisville and St Louis as
the nation�s meat packing centre, along with the railways now serving Chicago.
The new stockyards could hold 10,000 cattle and 100,000 hogs.
26/10/1865, Benjamin Guggenheim, US businessman, was born
27/4/1865, In the
US, the paddle steamer Sultana
exploded on the Mississippi River, killing 1,600 people on board.
End of
slavery in the USA/ Klu Klux Klan founded
24/12/1865, The Klu
Klux Klan was founded in the US by six men in Pulaski, Tennessee.
18/12/1865. Slavery was
officially abolished in the USA with the ratification of the 13th
Amendment, signed on 1/2/1865. See 16/6/1858. The slave trade to the United States had been prohibited in 1807 but
slavery continued in the southern States as the cotton trade grew. The
publication of Harriet
Beecher�s Uncle Tom�s Cabin in 1852 convinced many of the
evils of slavery but Northerners were still reluctant to back a full
abolitionist policy. But they did not wish to see slavery spread from the South
either and this led to the American Civil War
of 1861-65 after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Slaves were
freed in areas joining the Northern side and in all areas after the 13th
Amendment was passed.
Assassination
of President Lincoln
8/7/1865. Four of the
conspirators involved in the murder of President Lincoln (see 15/4/1865) were hanged.
Another three were sentenced to life imprisonment.
26/4/1865, John Wilkes
Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, died of a bullet
wound incurred whilst resisting arrest in a burning barn on a farm near Bowling
Green, Virginia.
14/4/1865. President
Lincoln was shot by an
assassin. He died the following day, 15/4/1865.The assassin, John Wilkes
Booth, a failed actor, was himself shot dead on 26/4/1865. He had entered the
Box Seven of Ford�s Theatre and shot the President in the back of the head with
a single bullet. The audience was laughing, and few heard the shot. Booth then
slashed at a soldier who rushed him, jumped on stage and shouted �Thus always
to tyrants � the South is avenged�. Booth managed to escape the theatre, but
was tracked down by police and federal agents. President Lincoln was buried on
4/5/1865 at Springfield, Illinois, where he began his legal career and where he
married. See 8/7/1865.
Last stages of American Civil War. Confederates lose their last port and
their capital
1/5/1867.
The Confederate leader Jefferson Davies walked out of a Virginia
courtroom, free after 2 years in prison. But he still faced treason charges, as
well as involvement in the assassination of President Lincoln.
6/6/1865,
USA civil war southern supporter William Quantrill, born 1837,, died from
wounds sustained whilst trying to escape from Unionist soldiers.
26/5/1865. The Confederate Army under General Kirby Smith surrendered in Texas, fully
ending the American Civil War.
10/5/1865.
Jefferson
Davies, Confederate President
of the USA, was taken prisoner by Union
forces in the American Civil War.
9/4/1865.
The American Civil War ended
when General Robert E Lee surrendered
his Confederate army to General Ulysses S
Grant at the Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The
27,000-strong Confederate army was effectively beaten but was seeking to gain access to a railway which could have taken them
south to join with General Johnson�s forces in North Carolina. But Union forces
blocked this move. The Confederate soldiers were allowed to keep their
horses and small arms, on condition that they did not take up arms against the
North again. This surrender effectively ended
a conflict that had set brother against brother, and taken over half a million
lives.
6/4/1865, The Battle of
Sailor's Creek was fought near Farmville, Virginia, as part of the Appomattox
Campaign, near the end of the American Civil War. The Confederates were defeated.
5/4/1865, Union troops
destroyed the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia.
3/4/1865, Battle at
Namozine Church, Virginia (Appomattox Campaign)
2/4/1865, Grant broke through at Petersburg, forcing the Confederates
to abandon Richmond.
13/3/1865,
During the American Civil War, the Confederates passed a law allowing African
Americans to enlist in their army. Whilst their freedom was not explicitly
promised, their being armed made them effectively free.
2/3/1865, President Lincoln rejected Confederate
attempts to negotiate, demanding unconditional surrender.
22/2/1865,
Wilmington, the last Confederate port,
fell to the Union forces.
17/2/1865,
Confederate troops abandoned Charleston. Sherman�s forces occupied Columbia, South
Carolina.
6/2/1865, Robert E Lee became Commander of the Confederate forces in America.
1/2/1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Resolution proposing the Thirteenth
Amendment, abolishing slavery in the USA.
21/1/1865, Sherman left Savannah, starting an advance through the
Carolinas.
24/12/1864, General Sherman captured Savannah, Georgia, from the Confederates.
1/12/1864, George Dallas, US statesman, died (born
10/7/1792).
15/11/1864, General Sherman set out on his march to Savannah, leaving Atlanta a ruin so the Confederates
could not use it. He destroyed all arsenals, public buildings, machine
shops, and depots, having evacuated all civilians.
31/10/1864, Nevada became the 36th State of the Union.
20/10/1864, Charles Lowell, US soldier, died
(born 2/1/1835)
19/10/1864, At the Battle of Cedar Creek, in the American Civil War, General Sheridan
defeated the Confederates.
For the Saint Albans (Vermont) riad this day, see Canada.
24/9/1864, Joshua Bates, US financier, died in London
(born in Weymouth, Massachusetts 10/10/1788).
19/9/1864, Sheridan repulsed Early at the Battle of Winchester, Virginia.
4/9/1864, John Morgan, US Confederate
soldier, died (born 1/6/1825).
2/9/1864, Sherman took Atlanta, then marched across Georgia towards
Savannah.
17/8/1864, Eight crewmen on
the Confederate submarine HL Hunley sank the Union warship Housatonic
with an explosive charge, killing five Northern sailors. This was the first time a submarine had sunk an enemy ship in wartime.
The Hunley surfaced to signal success to shore with a blue light, then
resubmerged. She never resurfaced.
7/8/1864, Philip Sheridan replaced Hunter.
5/8/1864, A Federal fleet
under David
Farragut won the Battle of Mobile Bay.
28/7/1864, At the Second Battle of
Atlanta, the South under General Hood was again defeated.
22/7/1864, General Sherman defeated �Southern troops under General John Bell Hood, aged 33,
at the Battle of Atlanta.
12/7/1864, Federal forces
defending Washington DC repulsed Early.
5/7/1864, Early invaded Maryland, aiming at Washington DC.
27/6/1864, Battle of Kenesaw
Mountains, Georgia. Confederate troops defeated Sherman�s forces, killing 2,000
of them to losses of only 270 of themselves.
18/6/1864, The USS
Kearsarge, captained by John Wilmslow, sank the British built warship
Alabama, a Confederate ship, off Cherbourg.
15/6/1864, Arlington
Cemetery, the site of the unknown soldier, was established near Washington.
5/6/1864, Battle of
Wilderness; Unionist victory.
3/6/1864, Battle
of Cold Harbor. Fought in Virginia during the American Civil War, General Ulysses
S Grant�s Unionist forces suffered heavy losses, 12,000 men, in an
ill-judged attack on General Robert E Lee�s well-defended
Confederate position. Although a Confederate
victory, this battle served to maintain the Unionist strategy of maintaining unremitting pressure on the South..
23/5/1864, Battle
of North Anna; Confederate victory.
21/5/1864, The Battle of
Spottsylvania Courthouse ended.
19/5/1864, David Hunter replaced Sigel as Union Commander in the Shenandoah
Valley.
15/5/1864, Battle
of Drewry�s Bluff; Confederate victory.
11/5/1864, Battle
of Yellow Tavern; Unionist victory.
7/5/1864, Sherman
launched a campaign against Joseph Johnston in Georgia.
9/3/1864, General Ulyssses Grant
was made Commander in Chief of the Union forces in the American Civil War.
2/3/1864, US President Lincoln
rejected Confederate General Lee�s call for peace talks, demanding surrender.
23/11/1863, The Battle of Chattanooga in the American Civil War. The Confederates under Bragg were heavily defeated.
19/11/1863. Abraham Lincoln
delivered the Gettysburg Address, at the dedication of the
military cemetery at Gettysburg. He said �government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth�.
2/11/1863, US President Lincoln was invited to make a speech at the dedication of
the new cemetery at Gettysburg. Jefferson Davis visited Charleston and
publicly stated that he believed the city would not fall.
17/10/1863, US Secretary of
War Edwin
Stanton boarded a train in Indianapolis, with orders for him to
assume command of the Military Division of the Mississippi.
3/10/1863. President Lincoln declared the last Thursday
in November to be a national holiday of Thanksgiving.
19/9/1863, The Battle of Chickamauga in the American Civil War. Confederate forces under Bragg won, but at a cost of over 2,000 dead
and 14,600 wounded.
13/9/1863, Cyrus Adler, US historian (died 1940) was
born.
26/8/1863, John Floyd, US politician, died (born
1/6/1807)
21/8/1863, The Quantrill raid, on Lawrence, Kansas.
11/7/1863, Conscription
began for the Unionist Army in the US Civil war. Draft riots broke out in New
York and other cities; 1,200 people were killed.
4/7/1863, Confederate
forces under General
Joseph Pemberton surrendered unconditionally to Federal troops who
had besieged Vicksburg since May. This
effectively split Confederate territory in two.
3/7/1863, The Battle of Gettysburg,, Pennsylvania, in the American Civil War, ended with the Confederate Army under General Robert E Lee
routed and over 50,000 dead or wounded.�
The Union victory was under General Meade
1/7/1863, The Battle of Gettysburg began. It ended on
3/7/1863 with a Unionist victory, although both sides lost heavily (Unionists,
23,000; Confederates, 25,000). With his defeat at Gettysburg, General Lee
retreated having lost any hopes of foreign support for his cause.
20/6/1863, West Virginia became the 35th State to join the Union.
3/6/1863, Lee began a campaign into Pennsylvania, partly to relieve pressure on his
army in Virginia. This led to the Battle
of Gettysburg, 1/7/1863.
10/5/1863, US General Stonewall Jackson died (born
21/1/1824).
6/5/1863, Lee (Confederate) defeated Hooker
(Unionist) at the Battle of
Chancellorsville.
3/5/1863, Despite a
Confederate victory, their best General, Stonewall Jackson, was seriously injured. This
day his arm was amputated; on 10/5/1863 he died of pneumonia.
30/4/1863, General Lee learnt
of Hooker�s
flanking manoeuvre and sent most of his forces to counter it, under Stonewall
Jackson.
29/4/1863, Federal
troops crossed the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg to hold Lee�s
forces in place whilst the flanking manoeuvre was completed.
27/4/1863, Hooker launched
a flanking movement against Robert E Lee�s Army of Northern Virginia at
Fredericksburg.
2/4/1863, Bread
riots in Richmond, Virginia, as women protested at food shortages and high
prices.
3/3/1863, President Lincoln signed the Conscription Act, compelling US citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay
US$300. This would bolster the army and top up the war coffers.
26/1/1863, Joseph Hooker replaced Ambrose Burnside as Commander of the Army of
the Potomac.
2/1/1863, The Battle of
Stones River ended with Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg withdrawing from
Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
13/12/1862, At the Battle of Fredericksburg in the
American Civil War, Lee�s Confederate forces defeated� Major General Burnside�s soldiers, who were
attempting to capture the town of Fredericksburg, despite being heavily
outnumbered.
26/10/1862, McClellan crossed from Maryland into Virginia.
22/9/1862, In a deliberate attempt to cause social disruption
in the Confederacy, President Lincoln
proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the South from 1/1/1863.
17/9/1862, Battle of Antietam, in the American Civil War. Although technically a Confederate
victory, both sides suffered major casualties and the Union cause gained enough
credibility to issue their Emancipation
Proclamation. In particular Lee�s Confederate forces could not now invade
the North and had to retreat back into Virginia.
4/9/1862, Lee invaded Maryland. McClellan
pursued him.
2/9/1862, Lincoln removed Pope
from command after his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and placed McClellan
in charge of all Federal troops in the Washington area.
1/9/1862, Philip Kearny,
US soldier, died (born 2/6/1815).
30/8/1862, At the second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia,Union
forces under Pope
were defeated by� Confederate forces
under Lee,
helped by Jackson.
3/8/1862, Lincoln recalled McClellan�s army. Lee launched an offensive in
northern Virginia.
1/7/1862, Battle of Malvern Mill; Unionist victory.
27/6/1862, Battle of
Gaine�s Mill; Confederate victory.
26/6/1862, Battle of
Mechanicsville; Unionist victory.
9/6/1862, Battle of
Port Republic; Confederate victory.
8/6/1862, Battle of
Cross Keys; Confederate victory.
6/6/1862, Turner Ashby, US
cavalry leader, died in a cavalry fight in Harrisonburg, Virginia (born 1824 in
Virginia).
31/5/1862, In the US
Civil War, Federal troops withdrew from the area between the James and York
Rivers, after suffering heavy losses.
25/5/1862, Battle of
Winchester; Confederate victory.
20/5/1862, The Homestead Act was voted in by US
Congress. It Specified that any US citizen, or alien wishing to become a
citizen, could have free, apart from a US$ 10 registration fee, 160 acres of
Western land provided they made certain improvements and lived there for 5
years.
8/5/1862, Battle of
McDowell; Confederate victory.
2/5/1862, Union forces occupied Baton Rouge.
1/5/1862, Union forces occupied New Orleans.
28/4/1862, Union naval
forces led by Flag Officer David Farragut captured New Orleans.
15/4/1862, Nashville, Tennessee, became the first Confederate
capital to fall to Union forces.
7/4/1862, In the American
Civil War, the Federal Army under Grant defeated the Confederates under General Joseph
Johnson, on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, near the
Tennessee River.
6/4/1862, The Battle of Shiloh began.
23/3/1862, Unionists
defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Kernstown.
17/3/1862, McClellan�s Army of
the Potomac began its campaign against Richmond.
14/3/1862, William Meade,
US Bishop, died (born 11/11/1789).
9/3/1862, The first
battle between iron-clad ships took place in the American Civil War. Merrymack was forced to retreat by the
Union ship Monitor. This blocked Confederate access to New York, and
gave the Unionists command of the sea. The Monitor was the first ship to be
fitted with a revolving gun turret allowing her to fire at any target
regardless of direction and after 1862 all combat ships were fitted with this
turret.
4/3/1862, Confederate
forces under Henry
Sibley took Santa Fe.
1/3/1862, Stonewall Jackson received
orders to prevent Federal forces in the Shenandoah Valley from advancing
westward through gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains and threatening Richmond,
Virginia.
25/2/1862, �Greenbacks�,
American banknotes, were first issued during the Civil War by Abraham Lincoln.
8/11/1861, The Unionist
warship San Jacinto removed Confederate Commissioners from the British
mailship Trent.
7/11/1861, Union forces
won a major victory over the Confederates at Port Royal, South Carolina.
24/10/1861, The Pony Express Mail Service in America,
running from St Joseph in Missouri to Sacramento in California, ended after
operating for just over 18 months.� The Transcontinental telegraph line across
the USA was completed.
21/10/1861, Unionist forces were defeated at the Battle of
Ball�s Bluff.
2/10/1861, At the Battle of
Bulls Bluff, on the Potomac River, the Unionists were defeated.
20/9/1861, The Battle of Lexington.
19/8/1861, The passport system was introduced in the USA.
16/8/1861, President
Lincoln barred all commerce with
the Confederacy.
10/8/1861, Union forces under General Nathaniel Lyon were
defeated at Wilson�s Creek, Missouri.
21/7/1861, The first thrust
by Unionist forces towards the Confederate capital at Richmond was repulsed at
the first Battle of Bull Run.
18/7/1861, Skirmish at
Blackburn�s Ford, Virginia.
14/7/1861, Nathan Appleton, US politician, died in Boston
(born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 6/10/1779).
10/6/1861, Battle of Big
Bethel, Virginia.
American
Civil War gets underway, Initial successes for Confederates; Britain neutral
8/6/1861, Tennessee
became the 11th State to leave the Union.
3/6/1861, Stephen Douglas,
US statesman, died (born 23/4/1813).
24/5/1861, Federal
troops crossed the River Potomac and occupied Arlington and Alexandria,
Virginia.
13/5/1861, Britain declared its neutrality in the
American Civil War.
20/4/1861, During
the American Civil War, Colonel Robert E Lee resigned from the US Army
when his home State of Virginia left the Union and joined the Confederates. He
became Major-General of the Virginia forces.
17/4/1861, Virginia voted to secede from the United States, after the
Battle of Fort Sumter and Abraham
Lincoln's call for volunteers.
15/4/1861, President Lincoln called up 75,000 militiamen
for 3 months.
19/4/1861, The first
casualties of the American Civil War. An angry secessionist mob attacked troops
headed for the US capital.
14/4/1861, The Battle
of Fort Sumter ended. Confederates captured the fort.
12/4/1861, The
American Civil War began between the 23 northern states and the 11 southern
states. The Confederates fired shots on Fort Sumter. See 26/5/1865, end of
Civil War. On 20/12/1860 South Carolina
had seceded from the Union and between 9/1/1861 and 1/2/1861 six other states
also seceded, mainly over the slavery issue. They set up the Confederate states.
Governor Pickens sent
commissioners to Washington to claim possession of all US property in his
state, including the forts on Charleston harbour. The northern, Union, forces meanwhile covertly abandoned Fort
Moultrie, untenable against a land attack, and reinforced their position at Fort Sumter, on 26/12/1860. President Abraham
Lincoln was inaugurated at Washington on 4/3/1861. Lincoln
faced the dilemma that seven slave states had seceded but eight remained in the
Union. Any attempt at coercion would push these eight, apart possibly from
Delaware, into the Confederacy. Many in
the North favoured �letting the wayward sisters depart in peace�, and did not
want war. The South was less averse to war because it believed the other slave states would rally to its aid. The
South, outnumbered 2 to 1 in manpower and 30 to 1 in availability of arms,
needed overseas aid to win.
Lincoln�s inaugural speech
was really addressed to the slave states still in the Union, but sounded like a
declaration of war to the Confederacy in the South. Lincoln determined to
relieve Sumter, which might be starved into surrender by the Confederates. The
Confederacy wanted war to galvanise its citizens, a considerable minority of
whom had opposed secession. The bombardment of Sumter continued from 4.30am. on
the 12 April until the afternoon of the 13 April, when it surrendered. The
fall of Sumter �set the heather afire� in the North, and the Civil War was
underway.
4/3/1861, President
Abraham
Lincoln, in his inaugural address as US President, promised to uphold the Union but also
to� preserve slavery in areas where it
existed.
11/2/1861, The USA unanimously passed a resolution
guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any State
8/2/1861, The
Confederate States united to fight the American Civil War, and chose Jefferson Davis as provisional President.
4/2/1861, Delegates
from the seven Southern Confederate US States met in Montgomery to draft a separate
Constitution. They were alarmed at
President Lincoln�s overwhelming victocy in the rapidly-industrialising North,
and his opposition to slavery.
20/12/1860. South Carolina seceded from the USA.
29/1/1861, Kansas became the 34th State of the Union.
1860, The US songwriter Dan Emmett
�I wish I was in the land of the dixes�; referring to the banknotes issued by
the Citizen�s Bank of Louisiana, which used both English and French on its
notes, so the 10$ notes were stamped �dix�, and became known as dixes. Emmett�s
line became corrupted to �I wish I was in the land of Dixie�.
31/10/1860, Juliette Low, founder in the USA of the Girl
Scouts, was born.
13/9/1860, John Pershing, commander of US forces in France
in World War
One, was born in Linn County, Missouri.
19/3/1860, William Bryan, US political leader, was born.
6/3/1860. The Republican politician Abraham Lincoln made a campaign speech defending the right to strike.
28/1/1860, Joseph Addison Alexander, US scholar (born
24/4/1809 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) died in Princeton.
10/1/1860. The first
major factory accident in the USA. A textiles factory collapsed in St
Lawrence, Massachusetts, killing 77 people.
1859, Boston�s Public Garden was established, 108 acres.
25/12/1858, James Gadsden, US diplomat, died (born
15/5/1788).
23/11/1859, Billy the Kid, or William Bonney, was shot dead by
Sheriff Pat Garrett.
3/10/1859, John Mason, US politician, died (born 18/4/1799).
14/2/1859. Oregon became the 33rd State of the USA.
1858, Central Park
in New York opened to the public, although it was not completed until 1863.
9/11/1858, The New
York Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert.
29/7/1858, US diplomat Townsend Harris persuaded Japan to grant further trade
privileges to the USA.
13/7/1858, US anthropologist Robert Culin was born in
Philadelphia (died 8/4/1929).
16/6/1858. In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, US Senate
candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery
issue had to be addressed. He declared �a house divided against itself cannot
stand�.
11/5/1858. Minnesota became the 32nd State of the USA.
7/10/1857, Louis McLane, US politician, died (born
28/5/1786).
18/4/1857, Clarence Darrow, US attorney famous for h9s
part in the Scopes �Monkey Trial�, was born.
23/12/1856, James Buchanan Duke, US industrialist, was
born in Durham, North Carolina (died 10/10/1925 in New York).
22/12/1856, Frank B Kellogg,
US politician, was born.
2/11/1856, Samuel Hoar,
US lawyer, died (born 18/5/1778)
9/11/1856, John Clayton,
US politician, died (born 24/7/1796).
2/9/1856, Jeremiah Jenks,
US economist, was born.
18/8/1855, Abbott Lawrence,
US statesman, died (born 16/12/1792).
4/7/1855. New
York became the 13th state to
ban the production or sale of alcoholic beverages. For more on Prohinition see Morals-Punishment.
26/10/1854, US entrepreneur CW Post was born.
5/7/1854, In America, the
Republican Party was officially founded.
30/5/1854, US Congress adopted the Kansas-Nebraska Act,
nullifying the Missouri Compromise.
See also Race Equality,
end of slavery
13/4/1854, Richard Ely, US economist, was born.
31/3/1854, The USA and Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa,
opening up the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
28/2/1854, The United States Republican Party was formed, in Ripon, Wisconsin.�������
1/2/1854, New York�s Astor Libraty
opened, with 80,000 books.
30/12/1853, The Gadsden Purchase was agreed with Mexico. The USA paid Mexico US$10
million, and received a tract of land south of the Gila River. This was
arranged by James
Gadsden, aged 65.
14/7/1853, The first US World Fair opened in New York. The
event was modelled on London�s 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.
8/7/1853, US Commodore Matthew
Perry steamed into Japan�s Edo Bay (now
Tokyo) with his �black ships� and demanded that the country open up to US trade.
He backed up his demand with cannon fire. For 250 years Japan had been a feudal
state run by the Tokugawa shoguns.
4/5/1853, Philander Knox, US politician,
was born.
31/12/1852, Henry Carter Adams, US economist, was born.
29/6/1852, Henry Clay, US politician, died (born
12/4/1777).
28/12/1851, Perry Belmont, US politician, was born in New
York.
24/12/1851, Large fire at the Library
of Congress, Washington DC, USA. 35,000 books were destroyed, including most of
Thomas Jefferson;�s personal collection, acquired in 1815.
22/10/1851, Archibald Alexander, US Presbyterian
clergyman, died in Princeton, New Jersey (born 17/4/1772 in Virginia).
18/9/1851, The New
York Times was first published.� It
was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond.
5/9/1851, Thomas Gallaudet,
US educator of the deaf and dumb, died (born 10/12/1787).
14/8/1851, Doc
Holliday, US Western gunfighter, was born.
13/8/1851, Felix Adler,
US educationalist (died 24/4/1933) was born.
3/6/1851, George Adams,
US historian (died 26/5/1925) was born.
19/4/1850, The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty between the USA
and UK was signed. It was an agreement on the terms for building a canal across
Nicaragua; under this treaty, neither party would exercise exclusive control
over such a canal or fortify it. The US
and the UK each had territorial interests in Central America, and were
suspicious of each other�s activities in the region. Ultimately this Treaty
was superseded by a similar neutralisation policy regarding the Panama Canal under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1902.
15/2/1850, Albert Cummins, US politician, was born (died
30/7/1926).
18/1/1850, Seth Low, US politician, was born.
12/8/1849, Albert Gallatin, US statesman, died (born
29/1/1761).
10/5/1849, In New
York, 22 died and 56 were injured as troops fired on anti-British riots sparked by Irish gangs. The mob,
armed with bricks and clubs, had gathered outside the Astor Place Opera House
to revile the British actor Charles Macready, who had scorned the
vulgarity of Americans.
5/3/1849, The US
Departmwent of the Interior was created, to administer the large areas added to the US by
the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Territories. It became custodian of the nations�s resources.
24/6/1848, Brooks Adams, US historian, (died 13/2/1927)
was born.
29/5/1848, Wisconsin became the 30th State of the Union.
29/3/1848, John Jacob Astor, US fur merchant and
philanthropist, died in New York City (born 17/7/1763 in Walldorf, Germany).
19/3/1848, Wyatt Earp, American law enforcer, was born in
Monmouth, Illinois.
2/2/1848. Mexico finally collapsed after nearly 2 years of war
with the USA, in which 13,000 US
soldiers were killed. Under the Treaty of Hidalgo, signed at Vera Cruz, Mexico
surrendered Texas, New Mexico, and California for a payment of US$15million.
The size of the USA was thus increased by nearly a third. The Mexicans feared
US occupation of their own country and had no money left to fund the war.
1847, The southern portion of the District of Columbia (see 1790, 1801),
south of the Potomac River and neglected by Washington DC including Alexandria
City, voted to return to Virgina State.
14/9/1847. US troops stormed and captured Mexico City, ending the US war with Mexico. With US forces
capturing Texas, New Mexico and California, Mexico lost a third of its territory.
5/9/1847. Jesse James, American outlaw, was born near
Kansas City. With his elder brother, Frank, he led the first gang to carry out train robberies.
10/7/1847, The first
Chinese migrants arrived in the USA. They came on the ship� Kee
Ying, from Canton (Guangzhou).
See also Mexico
C:\Users\BAD
ROBOT\Desktop\myweb4\images\000SouthCentrAmeric.htmfor Mexican War
1846-48
18/4/1847, US troops
under General
Winfield Scott defeated Mexican forces under Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo.
12/4/1847, During the war
between the USA and Mexico (1846-1848), this day US General Winfield Scott
met the first serious resistance to his advance on Mexico City.
23/2/1847, US forces
under General
Zachary Taylor defeated the Mexicans under Santa Anna at Buena Vista. The
US had ambitions to occupy the entire North American continent (the Manifest
Destiny), including possibly Mexico itself. The US had taken what is now New
Mexico and California (Upper California to Mexico).
26/1/1847, John Clark,
US economist, was born.
28/12/1846. Iowa was admitted as the 29th (non-slave) State of the USA.
25/12/1846. US troops defeated the Mexicans near Las Cruces,
virtually completing the conquest of New Mexico.
12/12/1846. The USA and Colombia agreed
to grant the USA transit rights on the narrow isthmus of Panama between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
10/8/1846, The
Smithsonian Institute was founded in Washington DC; it was established by a
bequest from the British scientist James Smithson.
15/6/1846. Britain
agreed with the USA that Oregon was US territory. All land west of the
Rockies and below the 49th parallel was to be US territory.
5/7/1846, Joseph Foraker, US politician, was born.
14/6/1846, The start
of the Black Bear revolt against Mexican rule in California.
Settlers in the Sacramento Valley demanded in independent republic.
13/5/1846. The USA declared war on Mexico. US Congress authorised US$ 10 million to fund the
war and to recruit 50,000 troops. Mexican
troops had crossed the Rio Grande into US territory (Texas), sparking the war.
26/2/1846, Buffalo Bill, American Army Scout and showman,
was born on a farm in Scott County, Iowa, as William Frederick Cody.
13/1/1846, US troops were directed to advance to the Rio
Grande, in anticipation of the failure of negotiations with Mexico.
1845, The US Naval Academy was
founded in Annapolis, Maryland.
29/12/1845, Texas became the 28th State of the Union.
29/3/1845, The UK and France laid proposals before Mexico,
that Texas should become independent but should not seek to ally with any other
country; they were concerned about the rapid growth of the US (see 1/3/1845).
28/3/1845. Mexico severed relations with the USA
following America�s ratification of the annexation of Texas on 1/3/1845,
after an almost unanimous vote in favour by the Texas electorate. On
29./12/1845 Texas became the 28th state of the USA.
1/3/1845,
US President
Tyler approved the decision to annex Texas to the United
States, just three days before the accession of President James K Polk. Both the UK and France
were now concerned at the great expansion of the USA. See
29/3/1845.
3/6/1844,
Garrett Hobart,
US Vice-President, was born (died 21/11/1899).
26/4/1844, Robert
Keep, US educator, was born (died
3/6/1904).
7/3/1844,
Anthony
Comstock, US moralist, was born in Connecticut (died 21/9/1913
in New York).
24/11/1843,
Richard Croker,
US politician, was born.
29/8/1843,
David Hill,
US politician, was born (died 30/10/1910).
20/6/1843, Hugh
Legare, US statesman, died (born 2/1/1797).
28/5/1843, Noah Webster, American lexicographer who first
compiled Webster�s Dictionary in 1828, died in New Haven, Connecticut aged 84.
22/5/1843, The first wagon train, with over 1,000 people,
left Missouri for Oregon. Travellers believed that paradisiacal conditions
awaited them. Some 700 reached Oregon alive.
1/4/1843, John Armstrong, US soldier and politician
(born 25/11/1758 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania) died in Red Hook, New York.
13/2/1843, Isaac Hull, US Commodore, died (born
9/3/1775).
11/1/1843, Francis Scott Key, the American lawyer and
poet who wrote the words of the US national anthem The Star Spangled Banner
in 1814, died.
See also Mexico for
events with USA at this time
4/11/1842, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd, member of a
slave-owning family in Kentucky.
9/8/1842, The USA and
Britain settled a dispute over the US-Canada border in the Maine region.������
2/1/1842,
The first wire suspension bridge in the USA opened, spanning the Schuykill
River near Philadelphia.
6/11/1841, Nelson Aldrich, US politician, was born in
Foster, Rhode Island.
10/4/1841, The New York
Tribune was first published.
8/3/1841, Oliver Wendell Jr, US Supreme Court Justice,
was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
See https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/teaching-american-history-ancient-maps--353110427005679672/
for map of growth of the
USA.
15/1/1841, Charles Briggs,
US scholar, was born.
1840, From New York to Boston
took 6 hours by train, or an overnight steamer journey; cost of the journey was
7 US$. From New York to Philadelphia by train and ferry took 6 � hours, down
from 3 days in 1817. However if the Delaware river froze over the journey time
was longer as passengers had to walk across the ice rather than use the ferry.
6/8/1840, Adolph Bandelier, US archaeologist, was born
in Bern, Switzerland.
27/2/1840, Isaac Chauncey, US naval commander, died (born
20/2/1772).
9/2/1840, William Sampson, US naval commander, was born
(died 6/5/1902).
8/8/1839, Nelson Miles, US soldier, was born.
8/7/1839, John D Rockerfeller, American philanthropist, was born in Richford, New York State.
26/6/1839, Simon Brute, US prelate, died (born
20/3/1779).
30/1/1839, Samuel Armstrong, US US soldier and
philanthropist, was born in Maui, Hawaii (died 11/5/1893 in Hampton, Virginia).
8/10/1838, John Hay, US statesman, was born (died
1/7/1905).
11/9/1838, John Ireland, US Catholic priest, was born.
1/9/1838, William Clark, US explorer, died (born
1/8/1770).
4/7/1838, The territory of Iowa was established, with Robert Lucas as governor.
16/6/1838, Cushman Davis, US politician, was born (died
17/11/1900).
10/5/1838, John Wilkes Booth, American actor who
assassinated President
Abraham Lincoln, was born in Baltimore, Maryland.
1837, Atlanta, Georgia, was
founded as a railhead.
26/12/1837, George Dewey, US naval officer, was born.
25/11/1837, Andrew Carnegie, US industrialist and
philanthropist, was born in Dunfermline, Scotland.
24/9/1837, Marcus Hanna, US politician, was born (died
15/2/1904).
29/6/1837, Nathaniel Macon, US politician, died (born
17/12/1758).
30/5/1837, Daniel Brinton, US archaeologist, was born
(died 31/7/1899).
17/4/1837, John Morgan, US financier, was born.
18/3/1837, Grover Cleveland, Democrat, and twice US President, was born in Caldwell, New
Jersey, the son of a Presbyterian Minister.
5/2/1837, Dwight Moody, US evangelist, was born (died
22/12/1899).
26/1/1837. Michigan became the 26th State of the USA.
7/12/1836, Stephen Austin, US pioneer, died.
Texas
breaks away from Mexico; not admitted to the USA
25/8/1837. The
Government in Washington refused to admit Texas to the Union. The US was
anxious to maintain its neutrality in the dispute between Texas and Mexico, and
did not want to, therefore, take the step of admitting one of the belligerents
to the Union.
3/3/1837. On his last day in office, President
Jackson recognised the Lone
Star Republic of Texas.
22/10/1836, Sam Houston was sworn in as President of
Texas.
21/4/1836. The Texan Army led by General Sam Houston inflicted a crushing defeat on the
Mexicans, at the battle of �San Jacinto,
and took General Santa Anna prisoner.
6/3/1836, The
siege of the Alamo ended.
2/3/1836. Texas was proclaimed a republic, by a group of 59 citizens, independent of
Mexico.
23/2/1836. The Mexican Army, with 5,000
soldiers, under Antonio de Lopez Santa Anna, laid siege to the Alamo,
a fortified mission station defended by 187 Texans, in San Antonio, Texas. Santa Anna had invaded Texas after
Texas had declared itself independent of the USA and elected its own President.
The Mexicans captured the Alamo on 6/3/1836, slaughtering all 187 defenders.
Deaths included William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davey Crockett. Only 2 women
survived, who had sheltered behind the sacristy. The Mexicans told one of them,
Susanna Dickinson, a blacksmith�s wife, to pass the message on to other Texans
that further fighting was hopeless.
2/10/1835, Texan-Americans
started their campaign for independence from Mexico by starting an armed
rebellion against the government of Antonio de Santa Anna in the town of
Gonzales. Americans had settled the area from 1825, when Texas was largely
undeveloped and there was little interference from the Mexican Government.
However the current administration was changing Mexico from a federation of
states into a centralised state.
27/3/1835, Texan rebels were massacred by the Mexican
Army at Gohad.
14/9/1836, Aaron Burr, US politician, died (born
6/2/1756).
2/7/1836, US Congress passed an Act approving the founding
of Dubuque, Iowa.
16/6/1836, Wesley Merriitt, US soldier, was born.
15/6/1836, Arkansas became the 25th State of the Union.
27/5/1836, Jay Gould, US financier, was born (died
2/12/1892).
23/5/1836, Edward :Livingston, US jurist, died (born
26/5/1764)
4/3/1836, John Lowell, US founder of the Lowell
Institute, died.
27/2/1836, Alexander Russell Alger, US soldier and
politician (died 14/1/1907 in Washington DC) was born Lafayette, Ohio.
19/11/1835, Fitzhugh Lee, US cavalry General, was born
(died 28/4/1905).
18/8/1835, Marshall Field, US merchant and
philanthropist, was born (died 16/1/1906).
6/7/1835, John Marshall, US jurist, died (born
24/9/1755).
31/1/1835, An assassination
attempt on US President Andrew Jackson
failed when the gun of Richard Lawson, house painter, jammed twice.
Lawrence claimed to be the rightful heir to the British throne.
2/1/1835, Charles Lowell, US soldier, was born (died
20/10/1864).
15/9/1834, William Crawford, US statesman, died (born
24/2/1771).
23/4/1834, Chauncey Depew, US politician, was born.
1/4/1834, James Fisk, US financier, was born (killed
6/1/1872).
20/3/1834, Charles William Eliot, US educator, was born
in Boston, Massachusetts (died in� Maine,
22/8/1926).
29/1/1834, Workers constructing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
(started 1828) rioted. President Jackson ordered Secretary of War James Cass
to send in Federal troops to restore order.
6/12/1833, John Mosby, US soldier, was born.
22/9/1833, Stephen Lee, US Confederate General, was born
(died 28/5/1908).
28/7/1833, William Bainbridge, US naval commodore, died
(born in Princeton, New Jersey, 7/5/1774).
1/6/1833, John Harlan, US jurist, was born.
24/5/1833, Brooklyn
Bridge in New York was opened.
14/5/1833, James Donald Cameron, US politician, was born.
11/2/1833, Melville Fuller, Chief Justice of the US
Supreme Court, was born (died 1910).
26/1/1833, Newton Bliss, US politician, was born in Fall
River, Massachusetts.
1832, The US Army daily liquor
ration was abolished.
13/7/1832, An expedition led by Henry Schoolcraft discovered the
source of the Mississippi River.
26/6/1832, Mexico began to assert a more authoritarian rule
over the US colonists in its territory of Texas. On this day the US colonists
rebelled, and captured the Mexican Army fort of Velasco.
20/6/1832, Benjamin Bristol, US politician, was born
(died 22/6/1896).
1/5/1832, Captain
Benjamin de Bourneville started on a 3-year expedition to explore
the Rocky Mountains.
25/1/1832, The State
of Virginia rejected the abolition of slavery.
24/1/1832, Joseph Choate, US lawyer, was born.
17/1/1832, Henry Baird, US historian, was born (died in
New York City, 11/11/1906).
26/12/1831, Stephen Girard, US financier and
philanthropist, died (born 20/5/1750).
See also Mexico for
events with USA at this time
28/11/1831, John MacKay, US industrialist, was born (died
20/7/1902).
22/4/1831, Alexander McCook, US soldier, was born.
21/4/1831, Texans
defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto.
5/9/1830, Francis William Allen, US classical scholar,
was born in Northborough, Massachusetts (died December 1889).
31/1/1830, James Blaine, US statesman, was born in
Pennsylvania (died in Washington DC 27/1/1893).
21/12/1829, Laura Bridgman, US blind deaf mute, was born
(died24/5/1889).
5/10/1829, Chester A Arthur, 21st US president, was born.
30/10/1829, Roscoe Conkling, US politician, was born (died
18/4/1888).
22/9/1829, William Belknap, US politician, was born in
Newburgh, New York (died in Washington DC 13/10/1890).
27/6/1829, James Smithson, British scientist whose
bequest established the Smithsonian
Institute at Washington to encourage scientific research, died in Genoa.
17/5/1829, John Jay, US statesman, died (born
12/12/1745).
15/5/1829, US Congress
declared the slave trade to be piracy.
2/3/1829, William Boyd Allison, US legislator, was born
in Perry, Ohio (died in Dubuque, Iowa, 4/8/1908).
29/10/1828, Thomas Bayard, US statesman, was born in
Wilmington, Delaware (died in Dedham, Massachusetts, 28/9/1898).
27/10/1828, Jacob Cox, US General, was born (died
4/1/1900).
8/9/1828, Joshua Chamberlain, US soldier, was born.
9/5/1828, Charles Cramp, US shipbuilder, was born
21/4/1828, The American Dictionary of the English language
was published. This both standardised
American English and put cultural difference between it and British English.
24/3/1828, Horace Gray, US jurist, was born (died
15/9/1902).
24/2/1828, US soldier Jacob Brown died (born 9/5/1775)
11/2/1828, De Witt Clinton, US politician, died (born
2/3/1760).
1/2/1828, George Edmunds, US politician, was born.
29/4/1827, Rufus King, US politician, died (born
24/3/1755)
19/3/1827, James Geddes, US soldier, was born (died
21/2/1887).
10/2/1827, Edward Atkinson, US economist, was born in
Brookline, Massachusetts (died in Boston 11/12/1905).
3/12/1826, George McClellan, US soldier, was born (died
29/10/1885).
31/10/1826, Joseph Hawley, US politician, was born (died
17/3/1905).
29/8/1826, George Hoar, US politician, was born (died
30/9/1904).
10/7/1826, Luther Martin, US lawyer, died (born
19/2/1748).
19/6/1826, Charles Brace, US philanthropist, was born I
Litchfield, Connecticut (died in Campfer, Tirol, 11/8/1890).
26/10/1825, The Erie
Canal, linking New York with the Great Lakes via Niagara and the Hudson River,
begun 4/7/1817, was completed. Influenced by Governor DeWitt Clinton the New
York state legislature agreed to fund the US$ 7 million project. The canal, 363
miles long, 40 foot wide, 4 foot deep, with 82 locks, would make New York the
principal port of America.
1/6/1825, John Morgan, US Confederate soldier, was born
(died 4/9/1864).
21/7/1824, Stanley Matthews, US jurist, was born (died
22/3/1889).
23/5/1824, Ambrose Burnside, US soldier, was born (died
13/9/1881).
16/5/1824, Levi Morton, US politician, was born.
14/2/1824, Winfield Hancock, US General, was born (died
9/2/1886).
2/12/1823, President Monroe of the USA declared that no
part of the Americas is now �res nullius�, or open to further European
colonisation, although existing European influences would be tolerated. This
was the basis of the Monroe Doctrine.
4/8/1823, Oliver Morton, US politician, was born (died
1/11/1877).
3/8/1823, Thomas Meagher, US soldier, was born (died
1/7/1867)
28/7/1823, Manasseh Cutler, US statesman, died (born
13/5/1742).
27/6/1823, Dorman Eaton, US lawyer, was born (died
23/12/1899).
5/6/1823, George Angell, US philanthropist, was born in
Southbridge, Massachusetts (died 16/3/1909 in Boston).
18/4/1823, George Cabot, US politician, died (born
16/12/1751)
1/4/1823, Simon Buckner, US soldier and politician, was
born.
23/3/1823, Schuyler Colfax, US politician, was born (died
13/1/1885).
27/2/1823, William Franklin, US Federal General in the
Civil War, was born (died 8/3/1903).
31/7/1822, Abram Hewitt, US politician, was born (died
18/1/1903).
23/7/1822, Darius Couch, US soldier, was born (died
12/2/1897).
18/7/1822, Theodore Dwight, US jurist, was born (died
28/6/1892).
27/4/1822, Ulysses Grant, General in the Union Army,
Democrat, and 18th President,
was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, the son of a tanner.
24/10/1821, Elias Boudinot, US revolutionary leader, died
in Burlington, New Jersey (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2/5/1740).
7/10/1821, Henry Richard Anderson, US soldier, was born
in South Carolina (died 26/6/1879 in Beaufort, South Carolina).
10/8/1821, Missouri became the 24th State of the Union.
13/7/1821, Nathan Forrest, US Confederate General, was� born (died 29/10/1877).
12/7/1821, Daniel Hill, US Confederate soldier, was born
(died 24/9/1889).
8/2/1821, James Longstreet, US Confederate soldier, was
born (died 2/1/1904).
21/1/1821, John Breckinbridge, US soldier and political
leader, was born (died 17/5/1875).
14/11/1820, Anson Burlingame, US statesman, was born (died
23/2/1870).
26/9/1820, Death of US frontiersman Daniel Boone. He explored the
Kentucky area.
26/8/1820, James Harlan, US politician, was born (died
5/10/1899).
23/5/1820, James Eads, US engineer, was born (died
8/3/1887).
15/5/1820, Congress in
the USA designated the slave trade as a form
of piracy.
4/4/1820, Charles Devens, US lawyer, was born (died
7/1/1891).
22/3/1820, Stephen Decatur, US naval commander, died
(born 5/1/1779).
15/3/1820, Congress
reached a compromise on the slavery issue by admitting Maine
(23rd state of the Union) to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. This measure was to
keep the number of slave and non-slave states equal.
9/3/1820, The USA
passed the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion by rich land
speculators.
8/2/1820, General William Sherman, American Union Army
commander during the Civil War, was born in Lancaster, Ohio.
1819, The US concluded a treaty
with Spain
substituting the River Sabine (present day boundary between Louisiana and
Texas) for the Rio Grande as boundary between them. Spain/Mexico thereby gained
the right to govern what is now Texas.
14/12/1819, Alabama became the 22nd State of the USA.
14/9/1819, Henry Hunt, US soldier, was born (died
11/2/1889).
26/6/1819, Abner Doubleday, US soldier, was born (died
26/1/1893).
28/4/1819, Ezra Abbot, US scholar of the Bible, was born in Jackson,
Maine.
21/4/1819, Oliver Evans, US industrialist, died (born
1755).
1/3/1819, Alexander Bell, US educationalist, was born
(died 1905).
1818, With the number of US
States growing, the US passed the Third
Flag Act (see 1794),
returning to the original thirteen stripes, with an extra star for each new
State. The exact pattern of the stars was still variable, see 1912.
3/12/1818, Illinois became the 21st State of the USA.
5/11/1818, Benjamin Butler, US politician, was born (died
11/1/1893).
28/10/1818, Abigail Adams, US First Lady, was born.
20/10/1818, The USA and
Britain agreed the border between the USA and
Canada to be the 49th parallel.
15/10/1818, Irvin McDowell, US soldier, was born (died
4/5/1885).
23/8/1818, The first steamship service began on the Great
Lakes, North America.
14/7/1818, Nathaniel Lyon, US soldier, was born (died
10/8/1861).
31/5/1818, John Albion Andrew, US politician, was born in
Windham, Maine (died 30/10/1867 in Boston).
28/5/1818, Pierre Beauregard, US soldier, was born near
New Orleans (died in New Orleans 20/2/1893).
20/5/1818, William Fargo, co-founder of the freight
carrier Wells Fargo, was born.
10/5/1818, Paul Revere, who made the famous ride from
Charlestown to Lexington to warn US militia of British troops, died aged 83 in
Boston, Massachusetts.
25/3/1818, Henry Lee, US General, died (born 29/1/1756).
23/3/1818, Don Carlos Buell, US soldier, was born (died
19/11/1898).
13/2/1818, George Clarke, US frontiersman, died (born
19/11/1752).
6/2/1818, William Maxwell Evarts, US statesman, was born
in Boston, Massachusetts (died 28/2/1901 in New York City).
28/1/1818, George Boutwell, US statesman, was born in
Brookline, Massachusetts (died in Groton, Massachusetts, 28/2/1905).
10/12/1817, Mississippi became the 20th State of the USA.
16/8/1817, Henry Davis, US politician, was born (died
30/12/1865).
10/8/1817, Francis Lowell, US cotton industrialist, died
(born 7/4/1775).
4/8/1817, Frederick Frelinghuysen, US statesman, was
born (died 20/5/1885).
16/6/1817, Alexander Dallas, US statesman, died (born
21/6/1759).
22/4/1817, Andrew Curtin, US politician, was born (died
7/10/1894).
22/3/1817, Braxton Bragg, US soldier, was born in North
Carolina (died in Galveston, Texas, 27/9/1876).
2/2/1817, Richard Ewell, US soldier, was born (died
25/1/1872).
11/12/1816