| THE SECOND MILLENIA |
| AD 1000 -- AD 2000 |
1800 -- 1900
Live from the Frontier!
Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park
1800
| Bill Richmond, a former Negro slave, becomes one of the first popular boxers. |
1803
| The size of the United States doubles with the Louisiana Purchase, all French Territories west of the Mississippi |
Click Here for the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: 1803 -- 1806
1808
| U.S. prohibits the importation of slaves from Africa. |
| Pigtails in men's hair disappear. |
1809
| Louis Braille, inventor of a reading system for the blind is born. |
1810
| SImon Bolivar emerges as a major figure in South American politics. |
| Phineas T. Barnum, American showman is born. |
1811
| English artisans, dubbed Luddites, begin smashing textile machinery and factories that threaten their way of life. |
Click Here to Read About the Great Comet of 1811
1812
| The United States declares war on Britain. |
1814
| Francis Scott Key writes poem that later becomes "The Star Spangled Banner" |
1817
| For the first time a street in an American city (Baltimore) is illuminated with gas lights. |
1818
| Mary Wellstonecraft Shelley writes "Frankenstein," an attack on industrialization. |
| The Smirnoff family goes into the vodka business. |
1820
| English nurse Florence Nightingale is born. |
1822
| The first patent for false teeth is issued. |
1823
| The Republic of Mexico is procalimed. |
| 1823: Joseph Smith begins his study of the golden-plated book revealed to him by the angel Moroni, starting the Mormon church. |
Click Here for an Interview between Dan Rather and Stephen F. Austin
1827
| John Herschel proposes contact lenses. |
1828
| The first edition of Webster's Dictionary is published. |
Click Here for the story of Sylvester Graham and his Cracker: 1829
1831
| Samuel Francis Smith, probably a student at Andover, Mass. writes the words to "My Country Tis of Thee". |
1835
| Texas declares its right to secede from Mexico. |
| Hans Christian Anderson publishes the first four of his 168 tales for children. |
| Samuel Colt takes out an English patent for his single-barreled pistol and rifle. |
| A Crack appears in the Liberty Bell, the symbol of U.S. freedom. |
1836
| Alamo falls after a 13-day seige; Davy Crockett, frontiersman and politician killed. |
| Texas wins independence from Mexico and becomes a Republic with Gen Sam Houston as president. |
1837
| Sitting Bull, Native AMerican chief is born. |
1838
| Samuel F. B. Morse gives the first public demonstration of his electric telegraph. |
| Gen. Winfield Scott oversees the forced removal of the Cherokee Indians into the Indian Territory of the West along the "Trail of Tears." |
1839 -- 1842
| Britain wins the first Opium War, forcing China to open markets to foreign trade. |
1840
| Americans begin playing baseball, derived from a British game called rounders. |
1840
| Father Damien, who gave his life to caring for lepers in Malakai, Hawaii is born. |
| Antarctica is discovered by American Charles WIlkes. |
1841
| U.S.S. Creole, carrying slaves from Virginia to Louisiana is seized by the slaves and sails into Nassau, where they become free. |
Click Here for a PERSONAL account of the 1900 mile long Oregon Trail: 1843
1845
| Texas and Florida become states. |
1846
| Famine in Ireland caused by the failure of the potato crop. |
| The Smithsonian Institution is founded. |
| The first formal baseball game is played. |
1847
| Brigham Young leads a party into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, Utah -- forms Salt Lake City. |
1848
| Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels predict the end of Capitolism in the "Communist Manifesto." |
| Gold is discovered in California and leads to the first land rush. |
1849
| Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman physician in the United States. |
1850
| Levi Strauss begins manufacturing heavyweight trousers for gold miners, made of the twilled cotton cloth known as "genes" in France. |
1851
| The schooner "America" wins the race around the Isle of Wight and brings the America's Cup to the U.S. |
1852
| A cartoon picturing "Uncle Sam" as the symbol fot the U.S. appears for the first time in a New York periodical. |
| The United States imports sparrows from Germany as a defense against caterpillars. |
| "Uncle Tom's Cabin", Harriet Beecher Stowe's story of slavery is published. |
1855
| Florence Nightingale introduces hygienic standards into military hospitals during the Crimean War. |
1861
| Milton Bradley launches the board game industry in America. |
1861 -- 1865
| U.S. CIvil War results in more deaths of Americans than any other war. In the end, though, the Union remained intact. |
1862
| The Civil War divides the Five Civilized Tribes, who brought slaves west with them when they were forced from their homelands in the South. Most side at once with the Confederacy, but the Creek Nation splits into pro-Union and pro-Confederate factions, who battle against one another throughout the war. |
1863
| The Emancipation Proclamation, intended to end slavery in the U.S. is issued by President Abraham Lincoln. |
1865
| President Lincoln is assassinated. |
1866
| Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving
blaze the first cattle trail, driving a
herd of 2,000 longhorns from Texas to
New Mexico in what will become an
annual tradition across the southern
plains. |
1868
| Impeachment proceedings are brought against President Andrew Jackson. |
1869
| A Golden Spike completes the
transcontinental railroad at
Promontory Point, Utah. |
Click Here for 19th Century Art: Realism and Impressionism: 1868
1872
| Congress creates a 2.2 million acre preserve in Yellowstone Valley, the first step towards creation of a national park system. |
1876
| Alexander Graham Bell transmits the first clear and distinct telephone message. |
1881
| The first American Red Cross is organized. |
1884
| For the first time in history, by a freak of nature, Niagra Falls stops flowing. |
| Czar Alexander III commissions jeweler Carl Faberge` to make an Easter Egg for the Empress. |
1886
| An Atlanta pharmacist launches Coca-Cola as a tonic. |
| U.S. saleswoman P.F.E. Albee becomes the first Avon lady. |
| The French give Americans the Statue of Liberty. |
1889
| The brassiere is invented in Paris. |
Click Here for a Postcard from the Eiffel Tower: 1889
1893
| Experts estimate that fewer that 2,000 buffalo remain of the more than 20 million that once roamed the Western plains. |
| More than 100,000 white settlers rush
into Oklahoma's Cherokee Outlet to
claim six million acres of former
Cherokee land. |
1894
| Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi builds the first radio equipment. |
1896
| Henry Ford builds his first experimental car in a workshop behind his home. |
| The discovery of gold at Bonanza
Creek, a tributary of the Klondike
River near Dawson City, Alaska,
sparks the last great Western rush for
riches. |
1898
| Teddy Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" stage a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish American War. |
1899
| Robert Parker and his partner, Harry
Longbaugh, better known as Butch
Cassidy and “The Sundance Kid,”
lead their “Wild Bunch” in a series of
bank and train robberies across the
West. When they eventually flee to
South America in 1901, the era of the
outlaw band comes to an end. |
