Timeline of United States history (1860–99)

1860s

1860 - Pony Express begins.

1860 - Crittenden Compromise

1860 - Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States

1860 - South Carolina secedes from the Union

1861 - Ten more states secede from the Union and establish the Confederate States of America

1861 - Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy

1861 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter

1861 - First Battle of Bull Run (First Battle of Manassas)

1862 - Battle of Hampton Roads (Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack; first ever naval battle between iron-sided ships)

1862 - Homestead Act

1862 - Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act

1862 - Gen. Robert E. Lee placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia

1862 - Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Battle of Manassas)

1862 - Battle of Antietam (Battle of Sharpsburg)

1862 - Dakota War of 1862 begins

1862–1863 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

1863 - Battle of Gettysburg

1863 - The Siege of Vicksburg ends

1863 - New York City draft riots

1863 - Pro-Union Virginia counties become separate state of West Virginia

1864 - Gen. Ulysses S. Grant put in command of all Union forces

1864 - Wade–Davis Bill

1864 - Sand Creek massacre

1864 - Nevada becomes a state

1864 - U.S. presidential election, 1864

1864 - Sherman's March to the Sea

1865 - Robert E. Lee made commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces

1865 - Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, captured by a corps of black Union troops

1865 - Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House

1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes President

1865 - American Civil War ends as the last elements of the Confederacy surrender

1865 - 13th Amendment passes, permanently outlawing slavery

1865 - Freedmen's Bureau

1866 - Civil Rights Act of 1866

1866 - Ku Klux Klan founded

1867 - Tenure of Office Act enacted

1867 - Territory of Alaska purchased from the Russian Empire

1867 - Nebraska becomes a state

1868 - Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, acquitted by the Senate

1868 - Fourteenth Amendment is ratified; second of Reconstruction Amendments

1868 - Ulysses S. Grant is elected president

1869 - The First Transcontinental Railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory

1870s

1870 - 15th Amendment

1870 - First graduate programs (at Yale and Harvard)

1870 - Enforcement Acts

1871 - Great Chicago Fire

1871 - Treaty of Washington with the British Empire regarding the Dominion of Canada

1872 - Yellowstone National Park created

1872 - Crédit Mobilier scandal

1872 - Amnesty Act

1872 - Alabama Claims

1872 - U.S. presidential election, 1872

1873 - Panic of 1873

1873 - Virginius Affair

1874 - Red River Indian War

1875 - Aristides (horse) wins first Kentucky Derby

1875 - Resumption Act

1875 - Civil Rights Act of 1875

1875 - The Art Students League of New York is founded

1876 - National League of baseball founded

1876 - Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia

1876 - Munn v. Illinois establishes public regulation of utilities

1876 - Colorado becomes a state

1876 - Battle of Little Bighorn

1876 - Wild Bill Hickok is killed by a shot to the back of his head by Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota. He held aces and eights, now known as the Dead man's hand.

1876 - U.S. presidential election, 1876 produces an unclear result with 20 Electoral College votes disputed

1877 - The Electoral Commission awards Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency

1877 - Reconstruction ends

1877 - Nez Perce War

1878 - Bland–Allison Act

1878 - Morgan silver dollars first minted

1879 - Thomas Edison creates first functioning light bulb

1879 - Knights of Labor go public

1880s

1880 - University of Southern California founded

1880 - U.S. population exceeds 50 million

1881 - The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory

1881 - James Garfield inaugurated as President

1881 - James Garfield assassinated

1881 - Chester A. Arthur inaugurated as President

1881 - Clara Barton creates Red Cross

1881 - Tuskegee Institute founded

1881 - Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett

1881 - A Century of Dishonor written by Helen Hunt Jackson

1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 - Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert and Charlie Ford

1883 - participants include: Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley.

1883 - Civil Rights Cases 109 US 3 1883 legalizes doctrine of segregation

1883 - Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act

1883 - Brooklyn Bridge opens

1885 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated as President

1885 - Washington Monument completed

1886 - Haymarket Riot

1886 - American Federation of Labor founded in Columbus, Ohio

1887 - The United States Congress creates Interstate Commerce Commission

1887 - Dawes Act

1887 - Hatch Act

1888 - Publication of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

1888 - National Geographic Society founded

1889 - Oklahoma Land Rush (April 22, 1889)

1889 - Benjamin Harrison becomes President

1889 - North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington become states

1889 - Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania

1889 - Jane Addams founds Hull House

1890s

1890 - Sherman Antitrust Act

1890 - Jacob Riis published "How the Other Half Lives"

1890 - Sherman Silver Purchase Act

1890 - McKinley Tariff

1890 - Yosemite National Park created

1890 - Idaho and Wyoming become states

1890 - Wounded Knee Massacre

1890 - National American Woman Suffrage Association founded

1891 - Baltimore crisis

1891 - James Naismith invents basketball

1892 - Homestead Strike

1892 - General Electric Company founded

1892 - Sierra Club founded

1893 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated President for second term

1893 - Panic of 1893

1893 - Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed

1894 - Coxey's Army

1894 - Pullman Strike

1894 - Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act, including income tax

1895 - Stagger Lee shoots Billy, spawning countless ballads.

1895 - Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. strikes down part of Wilson–Gorman Tariff

1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson 163 US 537 1896 affirms the idea of "separate but equal"

1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech

1896 - Gold discovered in the Yukon's Klondike

1896 - Utah becomes a state

1897 - William McKinley becomes President

1897 - Boston subway completed

1897 - Dingley tariff

1898 - USS Maine explodes in Havana, Cuba harbor, precipitating the Spanish–American War

1898 - De Lôme Letter

1898 - Treaty of Paris (1898) ends Spanish–American War, Philippine–American War begins

1898 - Hawaii annexed

1898 - Newlands Resolution

1898 - American Anti-Imperialist League organized

1899 - Teller Amendment

1899 - American Samoa occupied

1899 - Open Door Notes